- -- HUMAN RIGHTS AND OPPOSITION NEWS:
How Belarus Compares in Human Rights; No Constitution in Courts; Swedish Human Rights Monitors; US Congress Delegation to Belarus; Brest Restricts Demonstrations; Severinets Investigation Continues; Bukovsky Criticizes Belarus; Trade Union Arrests; BPF Calls for Anti-Lukashenko Consolidation; Council of Europe Invited to Observe Elections; Official Ideology Promulgated...
- -- THE BELARUSIAN ECONOMY:
No More Vodka; Lukashenko Says He's Sorry; Wage Arrears Grow; IMF Loan; Single Exchange Rate in 1999; Printing Cash; Restrictions on Food Sale; Exports to Russia Drop; Farmers Lag Behind Target...
- -- BROTHER SLAVS: RUSSIA & BELARUS:
The "Bread for Gas" Agreement; Lukashenko and Seleznev Displeased with Unification Process; Security Councils Coordinate; Russian Missiles Denied for Reinforcement;
- -- INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS:
Belarus and Turkey; Belarus and Egypt; Belarusian Trucks To Be Built In Egypt.
-- Human Rights and Opposition News --
BELARUS HAS "SUPERIOR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD"
A conference titled "Rights and Liberties of Belarusian citizens: Reality and Prospects", organized on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, took place at the National Academy of Sciences on November 5. Participants tried to convince one another that human rights and civil freedoms do exist in the country and are strictly observed. According to Belarusian Constitutional Court Justice Anatoly Tikhovenko, the Declaration of Human Rights should be considered as universal only in general terms. "This document was elaborated on the basis of a Western concept of values while the larger part of the world community does not belong to Western civilization. Therefore, Belarus may take its own way." Justice Tikhovenko, like other conference attendees, is convinced that compared to other CIS member countries, Belarus' human rights record is "superior." (Belaruskaya gazeta, November 17)
BELARUSIAN COURTS DON'T REFER TO CONSTITUTION
No Belarusian court has ever referred to the Constitution since its adoption in March 1994, said Grigory Vasilevich, Chief Justice of the Belarusian Constitutional Court, at the November 5 conference on the rights and liberties of Belarusian citizens. According to Vasilevich, lower courts never requested the Constitutional Court to examine the compliance of certain legislation with the Constitution. (Minsk News, November 10 - 16)
CHILLY WELCOME FOR SWEDISH HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS
From October 24 to November 3, the representatives of the Swedish Society for Peace and Arbitration visited Belarus on the invitation of the Spring 96 Human Rights Center to evaluate the human rights situation in Belarus. They happened to experience themselves how human rights observed in the country. Because the Swedes arrived in Gomel without passports, which had been taken from them by the registration clerks of the Yubileynaya hotel in Minsk, the KGB agents burst into their hotel rooms in the middle of them night, woke them, and asked them to show their documents. The agents then took away the passports of the Belarusian citizens who accompanied the Swedish guests and ordered them to appear at a Gomel police department on the next day to have their documents returned. On the next day, a Gomel police department chief fined Ales Belyatski, the head of the Spring 96, for four million Belarusian rubles ($40) for violation of the passport regime. (Belaruskaya gazeta, November 17 http://www.open.by )
US CONGRESS DELEGATION VISITS BELARUS
Adelegation from the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) arrived in Belarus on November 7 to meet representatives of local NGOs. According to USIS, "in addition to familiarizing themselves with the present situation in Belarus, delegation members intended to raise the question of observance of the OSCE standards and principles, which had become a matter of special concern for Washington in connection with the trends that had developed in Belarus." The delegation included Dorothy Taft, deputy head of staff and Orest Deychakiwski, the commission's staff adviser. (USIS, November 10)
WIFE OF JAILED EX-MINISTERS COMPLAINS ABOUT PRESSURE
Antonina Leonova, wife of Vasily Leonov, Belarus's ex-minister of agriculture, jailed on corruption charges since November 11, 1997, says that investigators pressure her husband during interrogations. During her last meeting with her husband, he said that the investigator had not allowed Leonov's lawyer to read some documents from the case. Leonov said that she had also been under pressure and that after one conversation with the investigator, she had been hospitalized with high blood pressure. In her response to Leonova's complaint about the investigator's behavior, the Prosecutor General's Office denied that the investigator had put any pressure on her and that she could be prosecuted for giving false testimony. (Minsk News, November 10 - 16)
ARRESTS FOLLOW TRADE UNION PROTEST
On November 12, Nikolai Romanov, a worker at the Minsk Motor Factory, was sentenced to a three-day administrative arrest. Romanov had taken part in the November 5 trade-union marching to the office building of the presidential administration. He was accused of violating Article 167 of the Civil Code regarding the regulation of street demonstrations. The rest of the detainees were reprimanded or are still awaiting trial. Among them are well-known opposition leaders, such as Victor Ivashkevich, the editor of Rabochy (Worker), an independent labor newspaper; Timofei Dranchuk, activist of the Malady Front, or youth section of the Belarusian Popular Front; Vyacheslav Sivchik, one of the BPF leaders; Ales Belyatski, the leader of the Spring 96 Human Rights Center; and Valery Shchukin, deputy of the 13th Supreme Soviet. The trials of those who speak Belarusian had to be postponed because Judge Nikolai Trubnikov could not understand them. The detained women were tried first. All three of them: Maria Aliyeva, head of the Independent Labor Union, and ILU activists Irina Zhykhar and Alyona Lazarchik, were given a reprimand. The cases of the underage detainees were remanded to the Committee on Juvenile Offenses. So far, the authorities have not responded to the appeal submitted by the demonstrators to the president. Commenting on the situation, Victor Ivashkevich said: "It is not our business whether the authorities consider our appeal or not. There we have clearly stated that unless the government replies by the end of the month, we will go on a nationwide strike." (Minsk News, November 17-23)
REGION AUTHORITIES TAKE MEASURES TO RESTRICT DEMONSTRATIONS
The Brest City Executive Committee issued a directive listing streets in Brest where demonstrations may not be held. The directive also indicates the place where it is allowed to hold rallies if they are authorized -- the Stroitel stadium, for example, though many Brest residents do not know where it is located. The directive is dated October 15, but it was unknown to the Brest public until it was published by the Brestsky Kuryer newspaper, two weeks later. (Minsk News, November 10 - 16)
INVESTIGATION OF SEVERINETS CONTINUES
An investigation into charges of "malicious hooliganism" against Pavel Severinets, the leader of Malady Front was extended until December 2, 1998. Severinets was arrested on April 2, 1998, following his participation in an opposition rally against closer ties with Russia. He was kept in pre-trial detention center for two months and then released on his own recognizance after a written pledge not to leave the country. In September, Severinets was re-admitted to the department of geography at the Belarusian State University after a 12-month leave. (Minsk News, November 10 - 16)
RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST CRITICIZES BELARUSIANS
"The danger of Lukashenko is in the passivity of the Belarusians and their neighbors' indifference," said Vladimir Bukovsky, a well-known Russian human rights activist who now lives in Great Britain, in an interview, published in Narodnaya Volya, an opposition newspaper, on November 6. Bukovsku is skeptical of the prospects for the re-establishment of the USSR and the Belarusian-Russian Union. "The Soviet Union will never come back. These things do not work back," he said. In his opinion, Russia is entering a "period of fragmentation," and under such conditions "all claims of the Belarusian president to the Russian throne look ridiculous." Bukovsky pointed out that it is necessary to "support forces capable of taking Lukashenko's place. A vacuum should not be allowed in a transitional period. And this will happen very soon." (Minsk News, November 10 - 16)
BPF CALLS FOR CONSOLIDATION AGAINST DICTATORSHIP
The Soim [Council] of the Belarusian Popular Front issued a statement urging political opposition to consolidate. The statement points to a sharp deterioration in the economy and a political crisis in the country. "President Lukashenko continues to play his dangerous games of integration with Russia, which in reality means the elimination of our independence and the collapse of the national economy," the statement says. The authors of the statement asserted the Front's strategic goal -- the preservation of Belarus's independence -- and the principal actions serving it: collecting signatures demanding Lukashenko's resignation and creating a citizenship of the Belarusian Popular Republic. The BPF called on all democratic political forces in the country to back the protest of the working people and entrepreneurs, to extend all kinds of assistance to them and to join efforts in monitoring the situation in the country "before the electoral farce conceived by the regime takes place." (Belapan, November 16)
...AND DECRIES HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
The BPF Soim also adopted a resolution in connection with the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document says that the Belarusian authorities are violating many of the declaration's articles in defiance of the civilized world. The BPF describes some of its aims as the protection of human rights in Belarus and the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the country's civic life. "We are calling on the people of Belarus to continue to stand up for their rights and not to be afraid of openly raising their voices against the duplicity and hypocrisy of the state policy in the area of human rights," the statement says. The BPF demands that the authorities release political prisoners Aleksey Shydlouski, Vladimir Pleshschenko, Vladimir Koudinov, Andrei Klimov, Grigory Kiyko and Vladimir Lysko. (Belapan, November 17)
COUNCIL OF EUROPE INVITED TO OBSERVE 1999 ELECTIONS
During a November 5 meeting, Lydia Yermoshina, Chairwoman of the Belarusian Central Election Committee, proposed to Robert Antretter, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, who recently visited Belarus, to send its representatives to observe elections in Belarus. Yermoshina said that Belarus will hold local elections in the spring of 1999, and that the Central Election Committee would like to see the assembly's representatives among other observers. (Minsk News, November 10-16)
STRUCTURE TO PROMULGATE OFFICIAL IDEOLOGY ESTABLISHED
"We finished setting up a vertical structure to deal with ideology," Ivan Pashkevich, the deputy head of the presidential administration, said on November 11 at a meeting in Gomel region with local governmental representatives and officials from the region's enterprises, collective farms and organizations. According to him, "over the last few years, we have lost close touch with working people, which is unbearable to them." Pashkevich said that guidelines for "all ideological work" are to be determined by the president's staff. These guidelines can be learnt at the so-called "orientation sessions" covering up-to-date official explanations of the current economic and political issues, which will be held monthly by the presidential administration. Pashkevich recommended "ideologues" to pay close attention to which opposition newspapers are read by "working people". He also said that the Sovetskaya Belarusiya newspaper should become their "reference book." Pashkevich demanded that ideological work be intensified "before the forthcoming elections." (Belapan, November 12)
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--The Belarusian Economy --
NOW EVEN VODKA GONE
On November 20, Belarusian government raised the price of vodka, essential liquid comfort in Belarus, sparking a run on the liquor shops to beat the price hike. A bottle of vodka is now hard to find for love or money. "What was the need to double vodka prices? Why did you, Sergey Stepanovich, discredit the country?" Lukashenko interrogated Prime Minister Sergey Ling in a nation-wide broadcast on state television. "How much do you have to hate people to make them stand in such lines? If you raise prices it is necessary to compensate people by raising their salaries. One doesn't need much brain to increase prices. It is incompetent! The financial crisis is now not only in Russia, it is all over the world. Although, it influences Belarus as well, I do not deserve people marching down the streets and shouting "Down with Lukashenko." I have been working as hard as I can to stabilize our economy," Lukashenko said. (Reuters, November 20)
LUKASHENKO SAYS HE'S SORRY
Speaking on national television, Lukashenko took personal responsibility for the country's economic misery. For the first time, Belarusian President apologized for the economic troubles and admitted that prices in stores are "unbearable" for the average Belarusian. "As the head of state I am forced to apologize to the people of Belarus for what has been happening lately," he said. (Associated Press, November 13)
...AND PLEDGES TO TIGHTEN GRIP ON BELARUS ECONOMY
On November 11, Alexander Lukashenko chaired a meeting at which the Republic's senior officials discussed the situation in the consumer market and steps to supply it with necessary goods. "People are expecting today's conference to produce specific decisions and specific results. I came to this conference without any intention of dismissing anyone. But if the situation is not stabilized by December 1, I assure you that I will be forced to carry out a serious government reshuffle," Lukashenko said. "I can't find an answer to the single simple question: Why, despite our developing industry and agriculture so dynamically, Belarusian people get poorer and poorer every month?" He vowed to reinforce direct government control over the economy and admitted that the administration failed in its duty to halt people's slide into poverty. (Agence France Presse, November 12)
...BY ANOTHER "SPECIAL COMMITTEE"
Alexander Lukashenko set up a special committee to deal with pressing economic issues. The committee is headed by Mikhail Myasnikovich, the chief of the administration, and includes high ranking government officials. The committee has to submit proposals on priorities in internal and foreign policy and ways of implementing them. It is empowered to exercise control over carrying out the government's decisions, a statement released by the press-office says. The committee will also deal with issues concerning pricing, wages, social welfare and foreign currency exchange controls. Victor Sheiman, Secretary of the Security Council, has to ensure protection of the internal market, as well as control over hard currency transactions and the use of confiscated property. Lukashenko said that from now on he would spend more time traveling in the provinces and inspecting enterprises. (Belapan, November 12)
WAGE ARREARS GROW
The wage situation in industry now directly influences national security, Victor Sheiman, secretary of the Security Council, said on November 13. According to Sheiman, the country is now in a critical situation with regard to wage payments, as wage arrears currently total 300bn Belarusian rubles ($30,000,000). The problem of unemployment is also becoming more and more acute. All these problems, Sheiman stressed, require solutions as soon as possible, because according to him, "apathy and frustration are taking place in a number of enterprises." (Belapan, November 14)
IMF CONSIDERS $100M LOAN FOR DETERIORATING BELARUS
An IMF mission completed its 10-day work in Belarus. On November 12, Thomas Wolf, head of the mission, presented its preliminary report at a meeting with Sergei Ling, Belarusian Prime Minister. Thomas Wolf stressed that the Belarusian economy is in dire straits. "Since our visit to Minsk last May, it has severely deteriorated, mainly because it was greatly affected by the Russian financial crisis. (BBC, November 16)
An International Monetary Fund mission which left Minsk on November 17 told the government it expected a tighter credit policy as well as exchange rate liberalization and privatization before disbursing new funds. Adalbert Knobl, who deals with Belarusian issues from Lithuania, told Reuters that the Fund could offer the government up to $100 million early next year under the Compensatory and Contingency Financing Facility. It might also resume another program frozen in January 1996. But the Fund criticized the huge emission of Belarusian rubles, which led to a jump in inflation. Consumer prices grew by 21 percent in October, compared to 17.6 percent in September. The announcement came two weeks after a delegation from the World Bank left Belarus saying no aid will be provided until the country begins economic reforms. (Reuters, November 18)
BELARUS WILL ESTABLISH SINGLE EXCHANGE RATE IN 1999
"We will be able to establish a single cash and non-cash exchange rate on the domestic and external markets," Pyotr Prokopovich, National Bank Chairman, said on national TV on November 17. He added that the correctness of the policy pursued by the government and the National Bank had been confirmed with time. "We have opted for a gradual and evolutionary change from the command-administrative system to a socially-oriented market economy that will not have a negative impact of revolutionary transformation," Prokopovich said. He added, however, that Russian economic problems are likely to complicate the attainment of the earlier planned economic indicators for the current year. Under the pressure of the Russian crisis, the republic's inflation rate in 1998 may exceed the planned by 31%, he said. (Interfax, November 18)
...AND WILL PRINT MORE CASH FOR GROWTH
Belarus will keep printing money next year to support economic growth although it will do so within reasonable limits, Pyotr Prokopovich, National Bank Chairman, said in an interview. "We cannot completely give up printing money next year, since it could lead to industrial decline, but we need to do it within reasonable limits. We will not use the methods of shock therapy, which would cause only harm to the economy," he told Reuters on November 17. According to Prokopovich, the National Bank will only issue 23 trillion Belarusian rubles ($331 million) by the end of the year compared to the more than 28 trillion rubles most recently planned. Without soft loans, GDP might fall by 9.5 percent this year, Prokopovich said. Officials expect the economy to expand by seven per cent in 1998. (Reuters, November 19).
LUKASHENKO HOPES FOR STABILIZATION BY JANUARY
Alexander Lukashenko told workers at a Minsk plant on November 18 that the country is now witnessing the beginning of market stabilization, Belarusian Television reported. Lukashenko expressed his hope that the economy will be stabilized by January. He added that stabilization would be accompanied by significantly higher prices and promised to increase peoples' wages in December to keep with price hikes. (RFE/RL, November 19)
BELARUSIAN REGIONS TIGHTEN RESTRICTIONS ON FOOD SALES
Almost all regions in Belarus have recently imposed stricter food rationing, Zvyazda reported on November 18. In the Brest region, an individual may purchase only 0.2 kg of butter, 1 kg of sugar, and 1 kg of sausage on any single occasion. Butter, eggs, and sugar may be purchased in the oblast only in the evening, after "the departure of the last trains to Ukraine," to prevent the smuggling of foodstuffs out of the country. Similar restrictions have also been introduced in Gomel and Vitebsk regions, on the border with Russia, as well as in some regions of Grodno oblast on the border with Lithuania. (RFE/RL, November 19)
FARMING SECTOR LAGS BEHIND PLAN; BUT BELARUS WILL NOT BEG FOR FOOD
The Belarusian farming sector will hardly achieve its targets for production growth in 1998, Belarusian radio reported. The radio said on November 9 that in the first nine months, only Grodno region managed to fulfil the plan. Nationally, gross agricultural output grew by only 0.1 per cent, against a target of 4 to 5 per cent.
Belarus is not planning to appeal to international organizations for food aid, said Mikalaj Buzo, Deputy Foreign Minister. According to him, the Belarusian leadership is also trying to avoid the need for foreign loans, which must be paid back at "very high interest rates". At the same time, Buzo said, Belarus is interested in increasing investments in the national economy. (BBC, November 13 and 14)
BELARUSIAN EXPORTS TO RUSSIA DROP AGAIN
According to the Belarusian Ministry of Statistics and Analysis, in October 1998 Belarusian export to Russia continued to decline. The main reason is the recent Russian financial crisis, which has disrupted payments for shipped products and caused a deterioration in the Russian population's purchasing power, which badly affects the Russian-oriented export potential of Belarus. (Belapan, November 10)
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--Brother Slavs: Russia & Belarus--
INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION BASED ON BREAD AND GAS
The main news that came out of a November 13 meeting of the Executive Committee of the Russia-Belarus Union was the signing of an accord dubbed "bread for gas" agreement. The upshot of the two-hour meeting at the White House was a decision by Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Prime Minister, and Sergei Ling, his Belarusian counterpart, that Belarus would pay off a significant portion of its debt to Gazprom in food products to feed the Russian Army. The ruble devaluation deprived Russia of the food imports to which it had become accustomed. Belarus, in turn, is experiencing a shortage of energy resources. (Interfax, November 18)
LUKASHENKO AND SELEZNEV DISSATISFIED WITH UNIFICATION PROCESS
During their meeting in Minsk on November 13, Alexander Lukashenko and Gennady Seleznev, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, expressed their dissatisfaction with the slow speed of the Belarusian-Russian unification process. Seleznev met Belarusian President to discuss the performance of the Supreme Council of the Russia-Belarus Union, currently headed by President Lukashenko. Lukashenko said that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union and its executive agencies had drafted and put forward a number of programs and documents, but most of them has remained on paper only. Gennady Seleznyov proposed to transform the Union into a confederation without holding a special referendum. The issue will be considered at the meeting of the Russia- Belarus Supreme Council in December, Seleznyov said. (Belapan, November 13)
SECURITY COUNCILS SET UP COORDINATION GROUP
A protocol on cooperation between the security councils of Belarus and Russia was signed by their heads, Victor Sheiman and Nikolai Bordyuzha, in Minsk on November 11. In the document, the sides agree to coordinate efforts in safeguarding various aspects of national security, in particular to hold regular consultations. The sides also agreed to set up a joint coordination group -- a working body of the state secretariat of the Belarusian Security Council and of the Russian Security Council. They also determined its composition and approved its action plan for 1998 - 99. The Belarusian and Russian sides in the coordination group will be headed by the deputy heads of the two security councils. (Belapan, November 11)
MILITARY DENIES POSSIBLE REINFORCEMENT WITH RUSSIAN MISSILES
Ivan Chykala, commander of the Belarusian rocket troops, rejected media reports that Belarus may reinforce its armed forces with new Russian tactical missiles in response to NATO's eastward expansion. At a news conference on November 11, he said: "No one will reinforce anyone in peacetime. We strictly observe international agreements." Chykala added that Belarus had its own facilities to develop new control systems for missiles and other equipment. Chykala noted that the Belarusian optical and mechanical group was developing optical devices that would make it possible to aim antitank guns under any weather conditions at any time of the day. "Much of the work has been suspended at present because of the lack of financing," Chykala said. (Belapan, November 11)
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BELARUS AND TURKEY SIGN MILITARY COOPERATION AGREEMENT
On November 11, Alexander Chumakov and Ismet Sezgin, the Belarusian and Turkish Defense Ministers, signed an agreement on cooperation in the defense industry and on a plan for joint activities in 1999 between the Belarusian Defense Ministry and the Turkish General Staff. According to the Turkish Defense Minister, he was impressed by what he had seen at the air base and aircraft repair plant in Baranavichy, Brest region, and Agat Company. Purchases of Belarusian military hardware were not discussed, Sezgin said.. (Interfax, November 11)
BELARUSIAN DELEGATION VISITS EGYPT
A Belarusian delegation led by Mikhail Marinich, the Minister on Foreign Economic Relations, visited Egypt at the invitation of country's Minister of International Cooperation. Among the members of delegation were a deputy defense minister, the president of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce, the director-general of the Minsk Motor Plant, representatives of the powder metallurgy scientific and production association, and the director-general of Integral, the Minsk-based electronic circuit manufacturer. (Belapan, November 10)
EGYPTIAN WEAPONS PLANT TO ASSEMBLE BELARUSIAN TRUCKS
An assembly plant for vehicles from the Minsk Automobile Works (MAZ) was officially opened in Egypt on November 11. MAZ trucks will be assembled at the manufacturing facilities of a Egyptian company, which specializes in producing complex military equipment, including surface-to-air missiles. The Egyptian side purchased the assembly equipment and it will be buying assembly units from the Minsk plant. MAZ experts have participated in the installation of the equipment. (BBC, November 14)
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