IN THIS ISSUE:

BELARUS AUTHORITIES FORCE HANCHAR TO END HUNGER STRIKE

Belarusian prison authorities forced Viktar Hanchar, head of the opposition Central Electoral Committee, to end a dry hunger strike on its fifth day. On the morning of March 6, Hanchar made a call to his wife. When Zinaida Hanchar picked up the phone, her husband only managed to say: "They forced me to stop my fast!" and they were immediately disconnected. A day before, the police declared that Hanchar himself decided to end the hunger strike. Hanchar was denied access to his counsel of choice, or to any lawyer, and his wife was not allowed to see him. (Charter 97, March 9)

HANCHAR RELEASED FROM JAIL… AND FACES NEW CHARGES

On March 11, after serving a 10-day jail sentence on administrative charges and maintaining a hunger strike for 5 days, Viktar Hanchar was released from jail. According to Radio 101.2, Hanchar’s wife told journalists that he was tortured when detained and while in the jail cell. Human Rights Watch has interviewed Hanchar, who recounts that police dressed in camouflage stopped his car and forcibly detained him, breaking his car window in the process. Police first attempted to hang Hanchar up by his hand-cuffed arms in the police van, and when this failed, they pressed him down on the seat and also pressured his ear drums. On March 6, camouflaged men in masks force-fed glucose to Hanchar through a tube, after twisting his arms behind his back. While force-feeding him, police played loud music, apparently in an effort to drown out his cries.

Prior to his release on March 11, Hanchar was taken to a temporary detention jail (SIZO), held in a freezing cell for three hours, and charged with violation of Art. 190 of the Belarusian Criminal Code, "misappropriation of official authority," a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison or a hard labor camp. The charges stem from the assertion of his leadership of the Central Electoral Commission, a position to which he was appointed by the now-disbanded democratically-elected parliament, which was reconstituted by President Lukashenko.

After Gonchar refused to sign a written obligation not to leave Belarus, prison guards put him in a cell, the so-called "stone sack," for two hours to force him to sign the documents, but he never complied. The KGB agents drove him around the city for two hours and then threw him out into the snow near the Minsk Ring Road. From there he made his way back home, fainting several times; he was wearing only a jacket. Also on March 11, Boris Gyunter and Anatoly Gurinovich, two other members of the opposition Central Electoral Committee (CEC), and Ludmila Bozhok, member of the United Civil Party staff, were subpoenaed by police investigators in the case against Hanchar and other CEC members. (Charter 97, Radio 101.2; Human Rights Watch, March 11)

HANCHAR’S WIFE LAUNCHES PROTEST

On March 7, Zinaida Hanchar told a news conference in Minsk that she and her husband's lawyer appealed to the Prosecutor’s Office and demanded the criminal proceedings to be instituted against those who forced her husband to stop a hunger strike and undergo a forensic medical examination. (Itar-Tass, March 7)

MINSK CITY COURT REFUSES TO REVIEW HANCHAR CASE

On March 8, Olga Zubava, Hanchar’s lawyer, petitioned the Minsk City Court to review his case. On March 9, Mikhail Oryadka, judge of the Minsk City Court, denied the appeal. (Charter 97, March 9)

OPPOSITION ACCUSES OSCE MISSION IN MINSK OF INACTIVITY

On March 10, a group of members of the opposition Central Electoral Committee went to the International Educational Center (IBB), which houses the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group, to hand officials a statement on the situation surrounding the arrest of the CEC

chairman. The opposition leaders criticised OSCE, which, in their view, has not been informing the OSCE leadership objectively about the developments surrounding the presidential election and the Hanchar case, and has not taken any action to get him out of prison. The same day Hanchar’s secretary, Ekaterina Antonik, declared a hunger strike right in the office of the OSCE AMG. (Belapan, March 10)

AMB. WIECK AWAITS CONFIRMATION ON HANCHAR CASE

In response to queries on the OSCE position concerning the Hanchar case, Amb. Hans-Georg Wieck, Head of the OSCE AMG in Minsk, stated that "if the information about treatment of Viktar Hanchar in prison by law-enforcement officers is confirmed, it will be an indicator of the worsening of the political climate and absence of the rule of law in this country".(Radio 101.2, March12)

LEAGUE URGES OSCE AMG TO CONDEMN LACK OF ACCESS TO PRISON

In March 8 correspondence to Amb. Wieck, Head of OSCE AMG, the International League for Human Rights called on the AMG to make a public statement on the failure of the Belarusian authorities to provide access for him and his staff to the Interior Ministry jail where Viktar Hanchar was being held. Under the terms of the mandate signed between the OSCE and the Belarusian government in December 1997, the OSCE AMG should have unimpeded access to "all institutions and persons in Belarus." On March 8, the AMG re-released the statement made March 3 by OSCE Chair-in-Office Knut Vollabek regarding the Hanchar case; on March 11, after Hanchar’s release, Hanspeter Kleiner, deputy head of the mission, stated that the OSCE had been denied permission to visit him in prison. (ILHR, March 8)

ELECTIONS --ANOTHER WARNING TO OPPOSITION ELECTORAL COMMITTEE

On March 8, Alexander Koktysh, the press secretary of the opposition Central Electoral Committee, was officially warned that he should not to take part in illegal actions. Koktysh was invited to the KGB, where he was told that his activity could lead to a criminal offence. (BBC, March 10)

KGB PUTS PRESSURE ON ELECTORIAL COMMITTEE IN GOMEL REGION

On March 12, Evgeny Murashko, a member of the opposition Electoral Committee in Gomel, was detained. In Petrikov (in the Gomel region) the KGB has increased pressure on the members of the local Electoral Committee. Its members receive phone calls and were told to cease their activities. According to Viachaslav Gerasimovich, a deputy of 13^th Supreme Soviet, none of the Committee members intends to stop their work. (Radio 101.2, March 5)

MALADY FRONT ACTIVISTS DETAINED IN MOGILEV

On March 4, Andrei Dvigoon and Ales Poltoratsky, members of Malady Front, were detained by the Mogilev police under Art. 167 of the Administrative Code for violation of the Election Law. They were collecting signatures in support of Zyanon Paznyak who will run for Belarusian presidency in May. On March 5, Andrei Dvigoon, was fined 1m BRB (about $30). The case of Poltoratsky, who is a minor, was handled by the Juvenile Court. Vladimir Tsurupanov, an opposition member, who came to the court to defend Dvigoon, was sentenced to three days of administrative arrest. (Spring 96, March 8)

OPPOSITION APPEALS TO INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Representatives of the opposition signed a statement condemning the physical pressure exerted on the head of the opposition Central Electoral Committee. They protest against such reprisals directed at political opponents and appeal to the international community to influence the Belarusian authorities to immediately stop such actions. The document was signed by Mikhail Chigir, former Belarusian Prime Minister, Semyon Sharetsky, the speaker of the 13^th Supreme Soviet, Stanislav Bogdankevich, the chairman of the United Civic Party, Lyavon Barshchewski, the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front, and other well-known activists of the Belarusian opposition. (BBC, March 10)

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS PROTEST AGAINST HARASSMENT OF OPPOSITION

Narodnaya Hramada, the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, protested against the harassment of the activists involved in the preparation of the May 16 presidential election by the authorities. Social democrats said that "the executive power, which is afraid of the growth of the mass movement in support of the May presidential elections, has launched a campaign of legal and psychological terror against activists". (Radio 101.2, March12)

LABOR PARTY PROTESTS AGAINST REPRESSION OF OPPOSITION MEMBERS

The Belarusian Labor Party has issued a statement defining as an "outburst of political repression" the persecution of the opposition Central Electoral Committee and other people who are involved in organizing the presidential elections. "Discontent with the authorities is on the rise, because life is getting harder. The government's attempts to intimidate people will have an adverse effect. Under conditions of restricted democratic rights and liberties, this may severely aggravate negative processes," reads the statement. The Labor Party calls on the government and opposition to work out a compromise with the assistance of international organizations and allow democratic parliamentary and presidential elections to be held under the control of independent observers. (Belapan, March 10)

OPPOSITION APPROVES ACTION PLAN

On March 10, the Coordination Council of Democratic Forces of Belarus approved a plan for future activities. The plan accentuates seven priorities, which include electoral and other mass campaigns and cooperation with trade unions. The meeting passed two statements. The first called on all democratic parties and movements in Belarus to mark the 5^th anniversary of the Belarusian Constitution. The second statement deals with the Council’s position with regard to the April 4 local elections. It stressed that these elections will be held under a law that gives the executive branch "immense opportunities for falsifications". Authorities have arbitrarily denied registration in the local elections to the majority of independent candidates. By doing this, the government deprived the pro-democratic part of society of the opportunity to vote for their candidates. (Radio 101.2, March11)

LUKASHENKO SAYS OPPOSITION FINANCED FROM STATE LOANS

On March 9, at an expanded conference on state foreign-currency credits, Lukashenko said that

"many of those who took the credits or who gave them illegally are investing this money in the election campaign, evidently trying to safeguard themselves from possible criminal proceedings. These swindlers are anxious to grab power today. We are watching them calmly. We know who took the money, we know the whereabouts of these persons, we know why they are not paying back the money, thus committing a crime. Some have left the country and are globe-trotting, provoking and blackmailing everyone. Why does the Interpol not take care of them? Why do Poland and other countries still hide those and others? They are criminals! They stole huge funds from the state and never paid them back. Today, they are giving the opposition the money to fight the president, who represents legitimate power," Lukashenko stated. (BBC, March 11)

GOVERNMENT READY FOR DIALOGUE WITH OPPOSITION?

On March 11, in response to the March 3 message from Knut Vollebaek, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, in which he voiced deep concern over the recent arrests of the chairman and members of the opposition Central Electoral Committee, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, which maintains that the government is ready for a dialogue with the opposition and international organizations. The authorities "principally proceed from the assumption that the dialogue should develop on the already existing constitutional basis, firmly fixing the dates of the parliamentary and presidential elections in the years 2000 and 2001, respectively," the Ministry said (thereby confirming the government’s adherence to the 1996 Constitution—eds.) The government, the Foreign Ministry added, regards the situation in the republic as stable. This stability rests on the unequivocal results of the November 1996 national referendum. The Ministry says that separate attempts to take advantage of what has happened over the last few days in Minsk- "illegal actions by part of the opposition aimed at creating an appearance of a constitutional crisis in the country- do not reflect the real situation." (Interfax, March 11)

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE: OPPOSITION WANTS TO SEIZE POWER

The "frantic" activities of the opposition are all aimed at unlawfully seizing power, the Belarusian Ministry of Justice said on March 11. "Certain Belarusian citizens who had earlier occupied posts in the 13^th Supreme Soviet have recently tried to destabilize the social and political situation in Belarus. These people are impeding the preparation for local elections scheduled for April 4," the statement says. (Interfax, March 11)

OSCE CALLS FOR "CIVILIZED DIALOGUE"; DIALOGUE "FROM PRISON" DIFFICULT

On March 10, the OSCE called for a civilized dialogue between the Belarusian government and opposition leaders. "We call on the authorities and opposition to start a dialogue which should result in a new constitution," Hanspeter Kleiner, deputy head of the OSCE mission in Belarus, told Reuters. "We have little hope for a compromise but we want to help this dialogue," he added. Kleiner stated that OSCE officials had been denied a meeting with Hanchar. The opposition points out that such a dialogue is hard to arrange: "We find it difficult to have a dialogue with the authorities when we are in prison," said opposition activist Boris Gyunter. (Reuters, March 11)

OPPOSITION TO BLAME?

On March 9 Gennady Seleznyov, Speaker of the Russian Duma, met Adrian Severin, Chairman of the Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, in Moscow and discussed with him the recent tensions between the Belarusian authorities and opposition. Severin said that the main obstacle to resolving this complicated matter is the opposition's refusal to have a dialogue with the authorities. Seleznyov said that he was convinced that the Belarusian authorities do not object to any negotiations. "If the opposition were constructive, it would not refuse a dialogue," he added. (ITAR-TASS, March 9)

"ANYTHING LESS THAN A PRINCIPLED POSITION WILL AMOUNT TO COMPLICITY"

In a statement in protest against the arrest and mistreatment of Viktar Hanchar, the International League for Human Rights noted the pattern of deteriorating human rights conditions in Belarus since the convention of the Congress of Democratic Forces in January, and questioned repeated calls for "compromise" and "dialogue" as a substitute for public condemnation of human rights violations. "All of the government’s recent actions indicate an uncompromising stance toward the remnants of democratic society which have survived, not to mention to the rule of law and international standards. And rather than seeking a compromise with such non-compliance, Western democracies and the OSCE must instead intervene and intercede immediately on behalf of those whose rights have been trampled, in order to restore those who peacefully and lawfully express their views, and participate in authentic democratic institutions, to their rightful place as equal and legitimized partners in a dialogue with the authoritarian government, with the ultimate aim of restoring democracy and the rule of law in Belarus. Anything less than such a principled position will amount to complicity with rulers who have not only massively committed human rights violations in positions of state authority; they have also tolerated the abuse of human rights by non-state actors such as fascistic movements, thus posing a threat to the entire region." (ILHR, March 3)

"WE’LL DEAL WITH OUR OPPOSITION…I’M A GROWN-UP"

Despite repeated calls for dialogue from OSCE, President Lukashenko appears to be brushing aside Western criticism and calls for a compromise with the opposition. In response to queries from journalists at a new conference in Ukraine, the president replied: "We’ll deal with our opposition in Minsk…I’m not afraid of anyone, I’m a grown man." (Reuters, March 15.)

CHIGIR CLAIMS SUPPORT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES

According to Mikhail Chigir, the former Belarusian Prime Minister, political situation in the country is unlikely to bring about anarchy. In an interview with the Russian Obshchaya Gazeta newspaper, he said that the situation will not go that far even in the light of the Lukashenko’s repetitious statements that he is not afraid of elections, that he could call them tomorrow and that he is certain to win. According to Chigir, the best solution could be negotiations between the president and the opposition, during which a compromise could be found. The former prime minister intends to do everything on his part to avert a civil conflict. "There are some representatives of law enforcement agencies who told me: just give us legitimate grounds and we will take care of the business and take it to its logical end. The people are tired of the way Belarus is living now, and law enforcement officers are no exception," Chigir added. (Belapan, March 9)

BPF LEADER ACCUSES MOSCOW OF INTERFERENCE

The initiative of Mikhail Chigir, the former Belarusian prime minister, who has been nominated as a candidate for the May 16 presidential elections, "is a political project of Moscow," Zyanon Paznyak claims. Paznyak thinks that the nomination of "Lukashenko’s former associate as a presidential candidate demonstrates the polarization of political forces in Belarus." Chigir is supported by "opposition and disappointed bureaucrats, marginal groups, and some democrats." According to Paznyak, the Belarusian Popular Front will be used "only for dirty work during the elections." In the event of Chigir's victory, "the incorporation of Belarus into Russia will speed up, because Moscow will have a lever to influence Lukashenko," the message says. (Interfax, March 9)

BELARUS OFFICIALS AND OPPOSITION INVITED TO FINLAND

Six Belarusian politicians received official invitations of the Finish Parliament to visit Finland from March 18 through March 22 to observe, along with representatives of other countries, the upcoming parliamentary elections. The list of invited Belarusian representatives includes Pavel Shipuk, chairman of the Upper House of the National Assembly, Lydia Yermoshina, chairman of the official Central Electoral Committee, Anatoly Krasutski, head of the Parliamentary Commission of the House of Representatives, Gennady Karpenko and Semyon Domash, deputies of 13^th Supreme Soviet, and Tatiana Protska, chairperson of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. (Radio 101.2, March 10)

UNION OF POLES IN BELARUS THREATENED

The existence of the Union of Poles in Belarus is threatened as the State Committee for Religious Affairs and Ethnic Minorities has moved to outlaw the organization by removing it from the register. The motion for banning the union had been filed by Ivan Janovich, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Religious Affairs and Ethnic Minorities, who claims that the union has violated its by-laws by engaging in political activities. Union officials maintain that it operates in full accordance with the Belarusian law and just tries to implement its goals, such as maintaining Polish schools and education in the Polish language, which are consistent with the Belarusian Constitution. (Polish News Bulletin, March 11)

--BROTHER SLAVS --

RUSSIANS ASK LUKASHENKO TO ADOPT THEIR TOWN

Officials in a small Russian town on the border with Belarus have asked Lukashenko to move the frontier and take them under his wing. "Historically we were part of Belarus and we're still almost surrounded by Belarusian land where our neighbors have almost everything and we have nothing," Ilya Kirchenko, the administration chief of Krasnaya Gora, said on March 11.

"We first applied to President Lukashenko last June," the official said in a telephone interview from the town of 19,000. "He sent a group of his people who studied the local situation and soon after the visit we received help. Our brewery was reconstructed and it now earns good money." "Belarus gave us significant other assistance and on March 10 we sent to Lukashenko a letter of our gratitude." Kirchenko said that the Krasnaya Gora officials had informally polled residents in the town and its administrative district. The vast majority wants to be a part of Belarus. It is not clear what Lukashenko and the Russian authorities make of the proposal from Krasnaya Gora. (Reuters, March 12)

US ENCOURAGES PLANS FOR BALTIC WAVES RADIO

On March 5, Lukashenko extended his gratitude to his Lithuanian counterpart Valdas Adamkus and Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas for adopting a "strict position" with regard to plans to set up a radio station broadcasting to Belarus. "I would like to extend my gratitude to President Adamkus for thwarting the attempt by right-wing radicals to establish an anti-Belarus center in Lithuania," Lukashenko told Lithuanian Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas during a meeting in Minsk on March 5. Meanwhile, Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, said on March 4 that plans to set up a non-governmental radio station in Lithuania broadcasting programs for Belarus should be encouraged. He sent a message to Vytautas Landsbergis, the chairman of the Lithuanian Parliament, at a meeting in Washington, Landsbergis's spokeswoman said. (BNS, March 9)

BELARUS SOLD 19 TANKS TO NORTH KOREA

On March 6, the Sankei Shimbun Japanese newspaper reported that Belarus had recently sold 19 tanks to North Korea. Sankei Shimbun explained that there was a high possibility that Belarus supplied weapons to other "third world" countries that had close relations with each other during the Soviet era, including North Korea, in the form of re-exporting weapons that were handed over by the former Soviet Union and weapons that were purchased from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (BBC, March 12)

The following news story is reprinted for readers in order to begin a discussion on US aid to Belarus during this critical period. According to League research, some of the information in this story is inaccurate (e.g. concerning various exchange rates) and we have seen some indication that certain policies may be changing. In our next issue we will publish any readers’ responses—Eds.

USAID SPONSORS LUKASHENKO

Alexander Lukashenko's dictatorial regime has taken the vast majority of U.S. aid spent in Belarus since 1997, according to people familiar with the aid-granting process and the groups that receive aid. What's more, the Kiev-based regional office of the U.S. Agency for International Development has ignored pleas to change the way it delivers aid and has instead asked the U.S. Congress to nearly double its annual aid allotment to Belarus. Many of the figures lobbying for wiser use of U.S. aid have been jailed at least once over the past month for defying Lukashenko's cancellation of a presidential election that was supposed to be held this May. Lukashenko's regime takes the aid mainly through an old Soviet trick: setting artificial exchange rates. As the value of the Belarusian ruble has plummeted, Lukashenko has created a complex system of artificially low exchange rates that depend on how and where the currency is exchanged. USAID sends money to aid recipients in Belarus by bank transfers of dollars, which must be converted into Belarusian rubles, at especially low rates. Since bank transfers must go through a state bank, the dollars go to Lukashenko's regime, while the recipient of the transfer gets only a small fraction of the dollars’ value in Belarusian rubles. In 1997-1998, the bank transfer rate varied from around one-fourth to one-fifth of the legal cash exchange rate and from around one-fifth to one-sixth of the black-market rate. The bank transfer rate has improved recently but still amounts to only about 40 percent of the legal cash exchange rate and about one-third the black-market rate.

Peter Byrne, a former director of the Belarusian Soros Foundation, says he brought up the problem to USAID officials in Kiev last October, but they have not reacted. "All but one out of every five or six dollars of U.S. aid money has gone directly to the Belarusian presidential administration," Byrne said. "[This is] an incomprehensible and gross waste of congressionally approved money." Linda Bernstein, the USAID official in charge of aid to Belarus, declined repeated requests for comment. "This is not a good time to discuss this," she said. "It's part of a larger political problem." Bernstein said USAID would dole out $5.4 million in Belarus in the current fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30. She declined to elaborate, but a USAID Web site puts the allotment of aid to Belarus for the 1999 fiscal year at $11.3 million, an increase from $6.7 million in the 1997 and 1998 fiscal years. That's small compared to the $225 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine in the 1999 fiscal year, but still a significant boost for the hard-currency-strapped Lukashenko regime. "It's a lot of money to play around with," said Byrne. Since he was banned from Belarus in 1997, Byrne has continued to work with many of the Belarusian non-governmental organizations that his foundation supported, and many of those NGOs also receive U.S. aid. USAID's request for the 2000 fiscal year is currently being considered by Congress. A Republican congressional staffer close to the process said he had heard nothing about Lukashenko's co-opting of bank transfers but that it was "no surprise" to him. "Our policy [in Belarus] is, at best, lacking in imagination," he said. "At worst, it's self-defeating." Terry Leary, the general director of the Counterpart Alliance for Partnership, a Kiev-based USAID contractor that mediates between USAID and aid recipients in Belarus, acknowledged that fluctuating rates of exchange are a problem, but says that it comes with the territory. "The changing legal environment creates a very uncertain climate for NGOs," she said. "The presidential regime is so unpredictable." Leary, however, maintains that this is the price of operating on a fully legal basis in Belarus. However, the bank transfers give aid recipients little room to maneuver. Not only is most of their aid lost in the exchange process, they are not allowed to withdraw the money in cash. They can only spend the money by further bank transfer - another method used by Lukashenko's regime to co-opt the aid.

Another problem typical of U.S. aid programs in the former Soviet Union is that much of the aid is taxed. Byrne estimated that U.S. aid recipients pay about 30 percent of the amount they actually receive in taxes. Recently, a group of pro-democracy NGOs called attention to another, even more insidious problem: the creation of NGOs by the Lukashenko regime that masquerade as supporters of democracy and compete with legitimate NGOs for aid. In a recent open letter to USAID, a coalition of pro-democratic organizations charged that "the activities of USAID and its subcontractors, especially those based in Ukraine, do not fully correspond to the task of helping to restore democracy in Belarus." The Belarusian government, the groups argue, has co-opted the so-called "third sector" (independent civic organizations) by infiltrating them with KGB agents or setting up their own. Zhanna Litvina, the head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said that government-controlled groups are the only ones that can operate above ground. "The government has created its own ‘Helsinki committee’, its own ‘association of journalists’," she said. "We are grateful to American and foreign donors, without whom the independent sector in Belarus could not survive," adds Carlos Sherman, vice president of the Belarusian PEN club. "But this is American taxpayer money, and I'm sure they don't want it to go to funding Lukashenko's OMON [Interior Ministry] troops." Most Belarusian civic activists and independent journalists are blacklisted from employment and completely depend on grants. Byrne said that Belarusian pro-democracy groups understandably want the United States to focus more resources on their causes because of the atmosphere of political crisis in Belarus. (Kiev Post, March 12)