Two Sides of a Medal :: Charter'97 :: News

Human rights violations chronicles for February 2003

Humiliation of human dignity and nation’s misery are two sides of one dictatorial medal. The current Belarusian “order of things” is no exception, and can be equally paralleled to the Marcos’ case in the Philippines or Sukharto’s in Indonesia. Time hasn’t yet come to publicize the shadow accumulation of riches, belonging to the family of Lukashenko. For now, we can only point out the visible side of the “order” – humiliation of human dignity and human rights violations. Unfortunately, we can only do that in Internet.

Closed circle

In February they halted action into journalist Dmitry Zavadsky’s disappearance case. A month earlier similar decision was passed concerning the cases of Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky and Yuri Zakharenko.

The authorities ceased making an illusion of investigations into the prominent opposition members’ disappearances. Special OSCE PA commission, headed by Sergei Kovalev, can no longer address the investigative bodies in order to familiarize itself with the case files’ materials. The authorities finally provided the “lower chamber” with the seats in the OSCE PA and may stop producing an illusion of democratic transformations. They determined to no longer play with the fireballs, nor show off and incite public tensions, but rather withdraw from investigation and therefore manifest their implication in dark acts. As said by Svetlana Zavadskaya, “if we keep up demanding, than numerous new violations will emerge again. It is more convenient for them to simply shut down the case”. Moreover, Viktor Sheiman is placed at the head of the procuracy, which Zavadskaya proposes to consider as main suspect on the case.

Judiciary fails to cope with the crisis

Under the conditions of the deepening social-economic crisis, the judiciary is working real hard. The split in the society is bringing about the rise in criminality rate. The judiciary system is literally overwhelmed by the influx of cases. In the year 2002 the amount of registered crimes augmented by 18,5%. The number of citizens, sentenced to imprisonment, rose by 35%, while the street criminality augmented by 60%. However, the Interior Minister of Belarus Vladimir Naumov deems that the only reason for that leap is the better registration of crimes. The Supreme Court’s presiding judge Valentin Sukalo disagrees with him, claiming that criminality is indeed on the rise in the country.

The head of state Alexander Lukashenko draws everyone’s attention to the corruption and shares his utter dissatisfaction by the fact that only 40% of these criminal lawsuits are directed into court and every fifth is halted. He said he distrusts the law-enforcement ministries and demands greater strictness from them.

Corruption remains the favorite topic of the head of state. Under the motto of corruption-fighting, populist Lukashenko prepared a draft law “On fighting corruption”. The project widens the circle of individuals, liable under the law, prolongs the lost of corruption misdemeanors and makes the penalties stricter.

In February the judiciary machine swallowed new cases, associated with corruption. Among the publicized cases, there fell pray to the state policy the director of “Pischevik” Nikolai Vinnik and his deputy Nikolai Britvin, director of the Brest factory Vasily Stasouk.

The act’s cost

The Belarusian authorities, realizing well the importance of media in the manipulation of the society and strengthening their positions, carry out the purposeful cleansing of informational field. After the uprooting of the independent national newspapers there came the turn of the local free press and Russian TV and radio companies. The economic court ruled to halt the activities of Romuald Ulan, founder of the “Novaya Gazeta Smargoni”. The court likewise declined to consider “Mestonye Vremya” newspaper’s lawsuit, filed against the regional hall. The Supreme Court turned down Pavel Mozheiko’s complaint and left in effect the verdict, passed against the journalist.

The Minister of information Mikhail Podgainy stated the broadening of the BT air-time at the cost of the Russian TV frequencies. The Council of Ministers approved Lukashenko’s draft law on the support of Minsk television. The Russian radio company “Golos Rossii” was proposed to broadcast on the UKV frequency instead of the medium waves.

It is way more complex for the authorities to cope with the civil initiative of opposition activists and religious activities of the non-Orthodox confessions. Despite the depressed condition of opposition in the aftermath of the presidential ballot, there became more frequent the cases of arrests, imprisonments and other arbitrary state’s acts. They sentenced to 15 days arrest the head of the movement “Grodno choice”, painter Dmitry Ivanovsky for his part in the entrepreneurs’ action. When he was starving in the confinement cell, they forbade the attorney to visit him in custody. 15 days of arrest were ruled against YF leader Pavel Severinets, 10 days against Arthur Finkevich, 7 days – Oleg Medvedev and Dmitry Fillipovich, 5 days – Petr Kovalev for marking the St.Valentine’s Day. The head of the Striking committee of entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky had a night raid, conducted by police in his apartment. Some attackers assaulted the office of ZUBR. Ten ZUBR activists were apprehended for gluing the stickers, one being interrogated by unidentified plain-clothed detectives. Leonid Malakhov, co-chairman of the “Private initiative”, was summoned to KGB for interrogation. YF was prohibited to hold action on February 14.

The authorities are especially settling accounts with Mikhail Chigir and his family members. Such attention is surely caused by the fact that he used to function as Lukashenko’s Prime Minister and was supposed to serve as a vivid example for the nomenclature. Another trial obliged Mikhail Chigir to pay off $1mln in compensation to the “Belagroprombank”. That was Chigir’s third court action. The fine followed three years of imprisonment and ban to occupy top posts for the period of five years. Add here for the fullness of picture seven years of jail to his junior son Alexander and two years of conditional imprisonment to his spouse Julia. As said by Mikhail Chigir, “that’s how much my resignation in 1996 cost me, when I disagreed with Alexander Lukashenko’s policy and joined opposition’s camp”.

The transport procuracy took interest in the activities of the trade union of aviation dispatchers. Six trade unions were united under the FTU roof, so that the “wrong” trade union leaders would be ousted from the federation. The Borisov authorities broke into the doors, leading to the office of the Belarusian organization of the political repressions’ victims. They also plundered the St.Nicolas’ church in the Dubaya village of the Brest region.

Diplomatic bargaining

In February the public witnessed the diplomatic bargaining between the OSCE and official Minsk. In exchange for the OSCE office’s presence in Minsk with the reduced authority, the OSCE PA recognized the “national assembly”. The head of the OSCE group Uta Tsapf, who arrived in Belarus in the beginning of the month, manifest her irritation over the commentaries, voiced by the official Minsk representatives, who said that the OSCE activities in the country must be preliminarily approved by the government and Lukashenko. Nonetheless, when speaking before the OSCE PA the woman called on everyone to vote in favor of granting official status with the PA to the Belarusian “parliament”. OSCE PA president Bruce George expressed hope that this move wouldn’t be interpreted as their encouragement of the current situation development in Belarus. According to him, it was but a purely procedural decision-making. The head of the OOM OSCE in Minsk ambassador Eberhard Haiken claims that he received an impression as if they rested too much hope on the OSCE representation. The former head of the mission ambassador Hans-Georg Wieck notes that “the OSCE PA ruled to accept the “national assembly” in hopes for an adequate feedback on part of the Belarusian authorities”.

Negative attitude towards the “national assembly’s” recognition by the OSCE PA was shared by the head of the US Congress delegation in OSCE PA Christopher Smith, OSCE secretary-general Jan Kubis and head of the Austrian parliament Andreas Kol.

There intensified the reaction of the international trade union structures to the trade unions’ rights abuses in Belarus. International confederation of free trade unions, the European confederation of trade unions, Universal confederation of labor forwarded their address to the EU trade commissar Pasqual Lami on the suspension of the system of preferences’ application to Belarus. The Belarusian FM rebukes the European Parliament over double standards for passing a resolution on trade unions rights violations in Belarus.

The Pope wrote an open letter to the Belarusian bishops, pointing out the significance of the family upbringing and work with the youth, the need to have good clergy and strengthen friendly relations with the Orthodox church.

The Western diplomacy, observing deteriorating human rights situation in Belarus, slowly gets over from words to actions. The European Parliament’s member Pedro Marset Campos spoke in favor of greater cooperation with Belarus via the TASIS programs. The head of the CoE political department Ivan Kaejikov claims that the CoE continues its open door policy, awaiting the fulfillment of four OSCE conditions by Belarus. President of the Commission for security and cooperation in Europe of the US Congress Christopher Smith presented for the US House of Representatives the “Act on democracy in Belarus”, aimed at the concrete support of the democratic forces in our country.

The official Minsk, nervously reacting to the human rights remarks and being unwilling to let the US embassy personnel observe the elections, keeps actively cooperating with Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s regime enjoys every kind of support. One cannot rule out the possibility of Saddam’s coming to Minsk one day.