Markus Merkel: New Approach to Belarusian Dictatorship Necessary :: Charter'97 :: News

International coordinator of the ruling Social Democratic Party in Bundestag Markus Merkel is sure that the past hopes of the West for the changes in the countries of the former Communist bloc had failed. Different line of approach to the dictatorships, including the Belarusian one, is necessary. The opinion of the well-known German politician is published in today Berlin newspaper “Die Tageszeitung”, Radio Svaboda informs.

Markus Merkel is the renowned expert in the questions of German foreign policy. He is from Eastern Germany. Once he was one of the founders of the GDR Party “Ost-SPD”, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he occupied the position of Foreign Minister of the GDR.

The undeniable mistake of the West was considering the changes in the former Eastern bloc as changes from above. In reality it has happened so that the new political actors could not correspond to this concept. Conclusions should be drawn urgently from these mistakes, Markus Merkel believes. “In the conditions of the Belarusian regime, where president Lukashenka by rigging referendum results has created all chances for life-long rule, a number of oppositional parties and independent non-governmental organizations exist. The goal of Germany and the EU is to support and strengthen these forces,” thinks Mr. Merkel.

As said by him, as long as the Belarusian mass media are almost a monopoly of the Belarusian state, extraordinary efforts are needed. He proposed simultaneously with vocational training of journalists from regions, to create alternative media to broadcast from abroad.

Mr. Merkel is convinced that the EU is to be ready to support Belarusian opposition in the questions of visa and immigration policy. As it was in the case of Cuba, for instance, when after a well-known wave of Castro repressions in March 2003, Brussels intensified contacts with Cuban dissidents. As for Belarus and Ukraine, the EU should devote more efforts to encouragement of democratic forces in these countries, German politician Markus Merkel is convinced.