Filter for Georgians :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarus is considering the question of leaving the Bishkek agreement according to which no visa is needed to travel within the frontiers of the CIS. This was announced Monday by Aliaxandar Gerasimenksa, the Vice Foreign Minister of the Republic. In this case Belarus will impose the visa regime with Georgia and Azerbaijan.

With other CIS members Belarus has concluded bilateral agreements on unimpeded trips of the residents. However, Minsk has already elaborated a project of a similar paper for Azerbaijan and has passed the project to the other side. The new document signed, Belarus declares its leaving the Bishkek agreement. In this case the Belarusian frontier is screwed up for the Georgians. According to the Belarusian Vice Foreign Minister, there is no politics in this decision, but allegedly the Republic tries to balk the penetration of criminal elements from Georgia to Belarus and further through the open (Belarusian-Russian) frontier - to Russia.

From analysts’ point of view, the actual reason is the fear felt by the Belarusian powers for the activists of Kmara (the youth movement that upheld Mikhail Saakashvili in the Georgian “rose revolution”) who pledged to take part in the coup d`?tat in Minsk. Lukashenka’s political opponents mature such plans; they even mention the time of the future revolution - the next summer, when the Presidential election will take place.

As the matter of fact, the relationship between Minsk and Tbilisi has been rather tense lately and the two states are permanently picking on each other. For example, the Georgian President and the Speaker of the Parliament - Mikhail Saakashvili and Nino Burdzhanadze - frequently accuse Lukashenka of establishing the dictatorship and forecast his oncoming overthrow. In the reply the Belarusian powers label the Georgian leadership “US puppets” and tell the Belarusian people (potential voters) about the tough life of the common Georgians in the post-revolutionary country. But despite the pretentious tone of these unmasking statements the Minsk officials are still afraid of the revolution export - both the revolutionary ideas and human resources. And this is the reason for closing the frontier.

We shall remind that the question of imposing of the visa regime with Georgia for the first time was raised in Minsk in the beginning of this June. The proper statement made, the press service of Lukashenka referred to “the President’s initiative”. In the reply Tbilisi threatened to announce the Belarusian leader persona non grata on the territory of Georgia. And in a day, trying to stifle the scandal, Lukashenka’s Administration refuted the information that the idea of pulling down the customs bar belonged to Aliaxandar Lukashenka. But, as it turned out, there is no smoke without fire.