Grodno Entrepreneurs Embark on One Day Strike :: Charter'97 :: News

On January 22 the entrepreneurs of Grodno intend to carry out a one-day warning strike. According to the preliminary data the strike will involve over 4,000 Grodno entrepreneurs. Their demands remain pretty much the same. Economic claims – to return confiscated on trumped-up pretexts commodity and money to the owners, dismiss officers of the controlling bodies, which behave lawlessly and halt constant police “raids”. Political demands are to stop the harassment of journalists and resignation of Alexander Lukashenko.

Ahead of the action the chairman of the Striking committee of entrepreneurs of Belarus Valery Levonevsky appealed to the businessmen with the following statement:

“Dear entrepreneurs!

Many of you are now faced with the same old dilemma: What should we do? How can we survive? The government and the president make us new gifts in the form of restrictive legislation acts. Numerous controlling structures are carrying out harsh examinations, patching up holes in the state budget at the cost of fines and confiscations.

The businessmen are put in the circumstances, when they are simply unable to meet all the demands, laid out by the constantly changing legislation. Even today every retailer must keep at his working place a whole pile of documents, which prove the purchase of goods, invoices, certificates etc. Nonetheless, these documents don’t relieve the danger of fines and confiscations, for under the present-day legislation they can easily find fault with anyone…

Dear colleagues, we cannot indifferently watch how they de facto plunder our fellowmen in the name of the law and how they leave their families without means for survival and humiliate them in every way. Every one of us could find himself in such a dire straits on day. With this in mind, the Striking committee of entrepreneurs determined:

To hold on January 22, 2003 (Wednesday) as a sign of solidarity with the entrepreneurs, who suffered from state lawlessness, a one-day warning strike in Grodno.

Yours,

Chairman of the Striking committee of the Belarusian entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky”.