BELARUS DIGEST

It is hardly a secret that establishing diplomatic relations with an authoritarian state is a gamble. One never knows what one’s embassy in Minsk may suffer if it crosses swords with the Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

On the night of August 30, two Molotov cocktails were thrown into the compound of the Russian Embassy in Minsk. Three days later, an obscure anarchist group said the attack was a reaction to Russia’s crackdown on activists protesting the plans for a new highway around Moscow. But the uproar caused by the bombing is unlikely to end so simply and so quickly.

In fact, it is unclear whether the attack was an act of hooliganism or a premeditated political move. Political or not, once it happened, the incident has become a part of the whirlpool of politics. It is interesting to observe of what Russia and Belarus make of the attack to advance their political goals.

The initial rumor that the embassy was attacked by the Belarusian hooligans in response to the Russian movie “Godfather” seems to have already played out in Lukashenka’s favor. Whether or not they are true, the rumors of this sort will undoubtedly help Lukashenka gain additional support in the upcoming presidential elections.

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Opposition leaders were unable to adopt a procedure for selecting a single presidential contender at their meeting in Minsk at the beginning of July, BelaPAN reported*. According to Uladzimir Kolas, chairman of the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian Intelligentsia (RBI), the process of selecting a single presidential contender had taken too long and might soon be of no use, as there would not be enough time for preparations to ensure an efficient and successful campaign. If the selection of a single candidate continues to be delayed, the RBI may withdraw from this process, Mr. Kolas noted.

Two presidential candidates Alyaksandr Milinkevich and Ales Mikhalevich have refused to be involved in the process.

Ales Mikhalevich was the first opposition candidate to launch his presidential campaign bid at a presentation on January 27, 2010 in Minsk*. The politician said he would rely only on Belarusian resources in his campaign. According to Mikhalevich, his team will comprise representatives of a new generation of the Belarusian society. He regards urban youth as his main support base. Mikhalevich is also the youngest candidate. He just turned 35 this May. (more…)

Last week, two men were sentenced to death in Hrodna, Belarus. The previously convicted men have murdered three during an armed robbery. They have 10 days to file an appeal, which may extend their lives, if only by a short period, and probably bring them into the full glare of publicity. While their crime is severe, it is hardly uncommon. So the media attention they will get is all due to the gravity of their sentence.

Belarus is the only country in Europe to practice capital punishment. Passing death sentences is what keeps the Belarusian Justice Ministry on the front pages, and the ministry excels at making headlines no less than the Belarusian leader. To maintain its nonpareil reputation, the Belarusian Justice Ministry has to annually resort to capital punishment, bravely shouldering the criticism of the international community. Unfortunately, publicity is not the only effect of Belarus’ insistence on retaining the death penalty. Capital punishment has kept Belarus out of the Council of Europe and leads to the violation of its commitments as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Belarus carries out executions in secrecy: the prisoners are informed of the execution only minutes before they are shot; prisoners’ families are not notified about the execution, given the bodies after the execution, or told where the executed were buried. Statistics on execution are also kept secret, but human rights activists estimate more than 400 have been shot since 1991. Just this March, two men were secretly executed despite the fact that their applications were still being reviewed by the UN Human Rights Committee. Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s November 2009 promise to launch an information campaign on the abolition of death penalty has not yet been fulfilled.

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In the last months Ukraine has significantly increased its importance in the European part of the CIS.

The new president Viktor Yanukovych enjoys a honeymoon with Russia: Ukrainian-Russian cooperation has started booming after previous president Viktor Yushchenko had left office. Ukraine and Russia have agreed on lower gas prices for Ukraine*, on the Russian Black Sea Fleet staying based in Ukraine till 2042*. Vladimir Putin has even made a sensation by speaking of a possible merger of Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz*. Added to this, there come smaller initiatives to establish cooperation (or to sell relevant Ukrainian assets to Russians) in nuclear power, shipbuilding*, aviation construction*, power generation and supply*.

At the same time, since the times of president Yushchenko Ukraine is an important partner for the largely isolated Belarus. Ukraine remains one of the very few European countries having official political contacts with the authoritarian Belarusian government and the contacts have only intensified with Yanukovych becoming president. Ukraine has recently become the transit country for the important Venezuelan oil supplies* to Belarus. In April the Belarusian parliament has finally ratified the border treaty with Ukraine*, which has been the key issue of Belarusian-Ukrainian relations since the collapse of the USSR.

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Alyaksandr Milinkevich, a leader of For Freedom party, announced his candidacy in the next presidential election. He said his campaign slogan would be “Let’s Make Belarus True Europe!”

At a May 3 press conference in Minsk, Milinkevich said he sees Belarus’ future in the European Union (EU) and hopes to “draw the Belarusians closer to the European level of life” within five years. Milinkevich plans to negotiate visa-free travel to the European Union for Belarusians and plans to create a free trade zone with the EU if elected president. He also supports building a market economy in Belarus.

Milinkevich vowed to “renew the democratic principles of the separation of powers declared by the 1994 constitution and hold elections for all bodies of government according to international democratic standards,” secure independent courts and freedom of expression, and repeal “all discriminatory laws that obstruct the activity of non-governmental organizations and trade unions and violate the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.”

He said Belarus should maintain “good-neighborly, open, mutually advantageous relations” with Russia and promised to conduct neutral foreign policy.

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Efficiency of official gatherings is often reversely proportional to the number of people invited. This rule held true even for the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC Apr. 12-13. Hosting 47 nations without singling out any of them was a feat accomplished not only at the expense of traffic disruptions inconveniencing DC residents, but also at the expense of meaningful and binding commitments. But even then, some states felt left out – by not being invited in the first place. As expected, Belarus was among the latter cohort, which included such debonair international actors as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuella.

While it’s “sister-nation” Ukraine basked in the fame of its “landmark decision” to get rid of all of its highly enriched uranium (HEU) by 2012, Minsk was vying for attention by brandishing the HEU stocks it intends to keep.

“We still have highly enriched uranium. Hundreds of kilograms of… weapons-grade and less-enriched uranium,” said Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. He complained of being “pushed to the wall” to remove the HEU and said “[n]obody will be allowed to make Belarus bow down.” “Let us sit at the negotiation table and decide what to do with this big amount of enriched uranium,” he said, clearly upset for not being invited to the big kids’ table.

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Today Belarus is the only country in the region that has not declared a day of national mourning following the death of the Polish president in a plane crash Apr. 10. Lithuania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Russia have all declared mourning, and events in Lech Kaczynski’s memory will be held by the EU official bodies. Even Brazil and Canada have joined in. However, the Belarusian government has so far limited its reaction to a brief statement of condolences.

To the contrary, the Belarusian civil society is actively expressing its solidarity with Poland. Many people have come to the Polish embassy to lay flowers (see a photo report by Naša Niva), and the leaders of both the Orthodox and the Catholic Church in Belarus have held memorial services.

The Belarusian authorities did help Poland after the plane crash. An airplane with relatives of the victims of Saturday’s tragedy landed in the Viciebsk airport, and the Belarusian government provided the relatives of the victims with a visa-free entry into Belarus as well as a transportation means to Smolensk.

It seems that nothing more should be expected from the Belarusian officials. Poland was and remains an unfriendly country to Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime. After all, Warsaw actively supports the democratic opposition in Belarus and criticizes human rights violations and repressions against the Union of Poles of Belarus. In addition to that, the Polish state television sponsors independent Belarusian satellite TV channel Belsat.

Lech Kaczyński’s unwillingness to contact the Belarusian authorities could have been one of the reasons why the pilots of the Polish presidential plane refused to land in Minsk, neglecting the advice of the Russian dispatchers at Smolensk airport.

On the day of the funeral ceremonies, flags on official buildings in Germany will be lowered to half-mast. On Monday, the EU flags in front of the EU and EC buildings in Brussels, Strasbourg, as well as capitals of all the 27 EU states were lowered to half-mast in sign of mourning.

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The American Comedy star Lisa Kudrow has found her Belarusian roots in NBC’s project Who Do You Think You Are. Her ancestors were Jews from the village Illia, Minsk province of Belarus. Some of her relatives have been killed during the Second World War.

The World War has put an end the Jewish Belarus after 800 thousands Belarusian Jews have been exterminated by Nazis. Every eighth victim of the Holocaust came from Belarus. Many Belarusian Jews have emigrated to the United States since late 19th century.

Lisa Kudrow has traced her family back to Belarus on the US version of Who Do You Think You Are?

The former Friends actress, who is an executive producer on the genealogy programme, has been filming her own appearance, Metro reports.

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On March 25, 1918, the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic, a representative body formed as a result of a nationwide congress in 1917, has adopted its Third Charter declaring independence of Belarus from the Russian Empire.

Formally, from that very moment till modern days Belarus has legally been a sovereign state: first as the Belarusian Democratic Republic (also known as the Belarusian People’s Republic or the Belarusian National Republic), then as the Belarusian Soviet Republic and since 1991 as the Republic of Belarus. The day is actively celebrated by the Belarusian democratic opposition and by the Belarusian diaspora in the West but is ignored by Belarusian officials.

Here the official address by Ivonka Survilla, President of the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic, the Belarusian government in exile:

Dear fellow Belarusians!

On behalf of the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic I congratulate you with the great national holiday, Freedom Day. I wish you to spend it with faith and hope for a better future. The Belarusian people will gain freedom and democracy just as it has gained independence.

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An article by one of this website’s authors for Novaja Europa magazine

The Belarusian liberal United Civil Party has decided not to participate in the local elections scheduled for April 2010. the authorities have started a new wave of repressions against independent media and conduct the election campaign in the same undemocratic way as during all previous elections in Belarus since 1995. Taking these facts into account, the party’s decision seems right. Such elections must be boycotted, but the absence of elections should not be an excuse for the opposition to not promote its ideas among the public.

More than that. It must finally be admitted that the Belarusian democratic opposition is currently unable to come to power. Neither the fraudulent elections, nor some Orange Revolution triggered by elections can lead threaten the current Belarusian regime. Such attempts have been several times repeated during the past fifteen years, and indeed, “if you do what you did, you’ll get what you got”.

What should Belarusian opposition parties do in these circumstances? What can the much larger informal public opposition hope for?

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A bit of sensational news came today in the morning: starting May, Belarus will daily buy 80,000 barrels of oil from Venezuela. According to media reports, this number is comparable to the current amount of agreed duty free Russian oil supplies (6.3m tons per year, i.e. 130,000 barrels per day). Before the crisis, annual Russian oil supplies to Belarus were between 20 million and 25 million tons. Own oil production in Belarus is less than 20,000 barrels per day.

The news came just before the visit of Russian PM Vladimir Putin to Belarus. Being on the visit to Venezuela, president Aliaksandr Lukašenka will avoid meeting Putin in Minsk.

Obviously, the agreement with Venezuela is a means to demonstrate readiness to at least partly diversify oil supplies if Russia is to cancel or cut duty free oil exports to Belarus. Lukashenka’s visit to Venezuela is aimed to strengthen Belarus’ position in new negotiations with Russia. Belarus aims to include duty free oil supplies into the conditions of the Russian-Kazakh-Belarusian customs union.

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What do you think is the difference between Belarus and Eastern Ukraine?

Despite being as much slavophilic, predominantly Russian-speaking and Soviet-nostalgic, the Belarusian society seems to be less pro-Russian then the population of Eastern Ukraine. There are fewer ethnic Russians in Belarus than in Ukraine. Because of president Lukašenka’s policy towards Russification and neo-Sovietism, there have been no tensions regarding mass introduction of the national language as in Ukraine. Groups potentially advocating a unification with Russia have never been too active in Belarus.

The question “West or Russia” has never arisen in Belarus as sharply as in Ukraine. Belarusians are pragmatic in this instance, opinion polls show that equal parts of the population support integration with Europe and Russia – with a big proportion of those advocating them both at the same time.

For some reasons we have started hearing of pro-Russian organizations in the last months, especially with the scandal around Andrej Hieraščanka (Gerashchenko) a month ago. (more…)