USA applied political, economic restrictions, maintained diplomatic pressure on Belarus in 2005 to support democracy, says Department of State :: Charter'97 :: News

The United States’ strategy to promote democracy and human rights in Belarus consisted of applying political and economic restrictions, maintaining diplomatic pressure, speaking out on abuses, and supporting democracy and human rights programs in 2005, says the US Department of State in a report released on Wednesday.

In its annual report, the US Department of State gives an account of how it supported democracy and human rights across the globe the previous year.

The year 2005 saw a “disappointing” trend of “the continuing erosion of democratic principles and human rights” in Belarus, the US Department of State says. “The Government’s human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas.”

In 2005, the USA cooperated closely with the OSCE, EU, and Belarus’ neighbors to promote democracy and human rights in the country, “including releasing joint U.S.-EU press statements on specific human rights abuses committed by the Government and organizing joint activities to show solidarity on democracy promotion.”

The USA repeatedly expressed concern about the state of democracy in the country and called on the authorities to conduct a free and independent presidential election.

“U.S. funding supported training, technical assistance, grants, and cross-border exchanges for pro-democracy groups and political parties on internal governance, strategic planning, membership recruitment and retention, message formulation, and outreach. Partly as a result of this assistance, leading pro-democracy forces in Belarus developed and successfully implemented a process for democratically selecting a candidate for the presidential election,” the report says.

The USA provided assistance to “a civic organization” to train independent election observers and implemented programs that “helped independent media outlets find ways to remain in operation in a political and business environment hostile to free media and helped independent journalists access information resources.”

“Belarusian NGOs remained highly dependent on outside assistance for survival, a situation complicated by legal restrictions on foreign assistance,” the Department of State notes.

But the USA “continued to provide legal and advocacy training and assistance for NGO lawyers and activists.”

Training, exchange, and educational reform programs also continued to be an important component of the US democracy and human rights promotion strategy.