For European Belarus! :: Charter'97 :: News

Recently the Belarusian authorities have spoken much of the necessity to improve the relationship with Europe. That was always spoken of by the leaders of democratic forces of the country. Today our future is being decided. The authorities must realize how serious the moment is. They must hear people, make the important historical choice and open the way for Belarus to free and prosperous Europe.

14 October the European March is to be held in the capital of Belarus. The preparation to the action and the negotiation with the authorities are dwelt upon by members of the European March organizing committee Andrei Sannikov, Mikalai Statkevich and Viktar Ivashkevich in the interview to the Charter’97 press center.

Andrei Sannikov, former deputy foreign minister of Belarus, international coordinator of Charter’97:

- Preparation for the European March evoked great interest in the society as the action was addressed first of all, to the inside of Belarus. Organizers and active participants of the action consider that the time has come for Belarus to make its strategic choice of the European future. The many –year attempts of flirting with Russia, begging for its cheap resources, drawing schemes of dishonest trade-economic relations finally resulted in the situation when the Belarusian economy appeared in a predicament. Consequently the situation will cause and has already caused people suffering. The time of uncivilized economic relations which had started after collapse of the Soviet Union elapsed.

Today European states either accept the rules of interrelationship or appear outside the international markets. That is why it is extremely relevant at the moment to make a balanced decision on the development of the European vector and, in general, on moving closer to Europe. It is that domain where the authorities and opposition could find the opportunity of interrelationship. However, we see the authorities demonstrating their dual attitude: on the one hand, they are sending messages on the wishful cooperation to Europe, on the other hand, they continue senseless repressions against the political opposition and civil society. For the reason of the European March the democratic forces made another offer to the authorities attempting to come to common agreement on holding the peaceful action in the capital of Belarus and even on their taking part in it. The talks were held with officials, the letter was sent to deputy head of the administration Natallia Pyatkevich .But there hasn’t been any public response, yet. In informal contacts with the democratic forces’ representatives they admit that the concept of the dialogue may really help Belarus. Let’s hope that those informal messages will be formally implemented anyway.

The European March evokes true interest in Europe both of the European Union and the civil society of European states. The attention to it is great and the interest to might-be appearance of contacting points between the authorities and opposition is growing. Representatives of the European Unions another time stressed in their declarations that the major obstacle to the positive development of events in Belarus is continuous repressions against the opposition and dissidents. So the situation is utterly clear. Its solution depends on the good will of the authorities inside Belarus.

Mikalai Statkevich , coordinator of the European Coalition , chairman of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Socio-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gramada):

- Considerable part of the Belarusian society wishes our country’s integration into the European Union. The situation in Belarus may be characterized as follows. In the west the European Union has come as close as possible to us. In the east it is Russia, flourishing under the rain of oil and oil products that wants to manifest the whole world that it is a great empire nation and to annex, to conquer someone for proving that .And our country has really appeared under hard conditions. It would be logical to knock at the European Union’s door asking to let us in. The authorities have only now got the concept of the of the Russian -European non-conflict balance. I dwelt upon it already 10 years ago. But then the situation was different. Then Russia was more involved in its internal problems but now the balance is unattainable. We must choose either this or that. In the European Union they offer us help that we need. And the European Union does not demand payment in sovereignty, language and culture for their help. They do not demand sending our guys to the Caucasian war. There is no domineering country in the European Union. The joint decision-making is exercised their. And a smaller country has the chance of being heard and of influencing the standpoint of more powerful entities. On the contrary, the consolidation of national cultures as well as high social standards that are so interesting to the majority are paid special attention to, to say nothing of the democracy. That is why the choice is unambiguous – we should focus on the integration of Belarus into the European Union.

The authorities today have to select definite messages speaking of their readiness to move towards the proposals on democratization of the country. To begin with they are to seize persecution of the oppositions. For some reason the persecutions are targeted at the pro-European part of the opposition. Stop throwing children into jails! These children sincerely wish the best for our country. The attitude towards the European March may become the litmus paper for testing the sincerity of the authority’s declarations, of their wish to cooperate with Europe. The next step may be the dialogue with the opposition.

Viktar Ivashkevich, chairman of the organizing committee of the European March, deputy chairman of the BNF Party:

--Information campaign on preparation of the European March has been underway for already two months. All the democratic forces as well as the Belarusian well-known cultural and public figures spoke of their support to the European March and declared their intention to participate in it. Last week representatives of the organizing committee of the European March Andrei Sannikov, Mikhail Marinich, Yuri Khadyka, Stanislau Bagdankevich and me sent a letter to deputy of the president’s administration Natallia Pyatkevich asking for the meeting to discuss the action procedure for it to be held with dignity, in the European way, for everybody to benefit from the action : for the democratic forces to declare their stand point, the authorities to manifest their taking of the civilized way of the relationship with their opponents inside Belarus thus promoting the dialogue of the authorities with the European Union. Next Wednesday the conference with members of the negotiating group is to be held. The subject of the conference is the opportunities of the dialogue between the authorities and the opposition. There are no forces in the society who openly confront holding of the European March and the idea of the European integration necessity.