INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

BELARUS UPDATE
Edited by Victor Cole

Vol. 4, No. 30
July 2001

IN THIS ISSUE:

- Opposition Agrees on Single Presidential Candidate
- Four Candidates Collect 100,000 Signatures Needed to Get on Ballot
- OSCE, Russian Election Commission to Observe Belarusian Elections
- US Ambassador Urges Belarusian Authorities to Hold Free Elections
- Russian and Ukrainian Presidents Visit Belarus Ahead of Elections
- IHF: No Signs of Improvement in the Human Rights Situation in Belarus
- Election Commission Adopts Media Access Rules for Candidates
- Two Zubr Activists Sentenced to Two Years of Hard Labor for Graffiti
- Case of Disappeared Journalist Sent to Minsk Region Court
- Ambassador Accuses Opposition Of "Revealing Dirty Linen"
- Civil Rights Attorney and Journalist Fined
- Opposition Activists Stand Trial for Unauthorized Picketing
- Harassment of Independent Media Continues in Belarus
- Son of Former Belarusian Banker to Stand Trial
- German Citizen Sentenced To Seven Years in Prison For Spying

-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS NEWS-

OPPOSITION AGREES ON SINGLE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

On July 21, the four leading opposition candidates (Mikhail Chigir, Former Prime Minister; Pavel Kozlovsky, former Defense Minister; Semyon Domash, deputy of the 13th Supreme Soviet, chair of the Grodno Initiative and the Coordination Council of Belarusian Regions; and Sergey Kalyakin, leader of the Party of Communists of Belarus) said they were withdrawing from the presidential race at the beginning of August and forming a united campaign behind Vladimir Goncharik, chair of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, formerly the Belarusian branch of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of the USSR. The new five-man opposition team have said they believed their alliance could win if the vote was free and fair. Sergei Kalyakin said he believed other candidates would join the anti-Lukashenko coalition. "We appeal to all political forces, organizations and citizens to support us for the sake of the country's future," he said. "All five of us will work in a united team and combine our efforts," said Goncharik, 61, after the five-hour meeting in the Palace of Unions. "If we win, society will become democratic and the economy will be reformed," he said. Goncharik said he had no objection to Belarus joining the European Union and NATO. [Local observers believe Russia would firmly resist any idea of Belarus joining the Atlantic Alliance.-Ed.]. On July 22, the Central Committee of the Party of Communists of Belarus, chaired by Sergey Kalyakin, decided to support Goncharik as the single democratic challenger to the incumbent Belarusian president. (Belapan, July 21-23)

FOUR CANDIDATES COLLECT 100,000 SIGNATURES NEEDED TO GET ON BALLOT

On July 24, Lydia Yermoshina, chair of the Central Commission for Elections and National Referenda, told a press conference in Minsk that only four potential candidates managed to submit to the Commission's 100,000 signatures required for their registration as presidential hopefuls, reported Belapan. The election official said that Alexander Lukashenko collected 396,375 signatures. Vladimir Goncharik, chair of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, collected 123,380 signatures; Sergei Gaidukevich, chair of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus -136,259; and Semyon Domash, deputy of the 13th Supreme Soviet, chair of the Grodno Initiative and the Coordination Council of Belarusian Regions -161,471 of the signatures necessary to get on the ballot. Leonid Kalugin, executive director of Atlant, Minsk-based refrigerator plant; Sergey Kalyakin, leader of the Party of Communists of Belarus; and Mikhail Marinich, Belarusian ambassador to Latvia, Estonia and Finland reportedly fell a few thousand signatures short of the necessary 100,000.

The following is a list of the candidates who failed to collect 100,000 signatures required for their registration, with a number in brackets indicating how many signatures has been submitted for the nomination of the given candidate:

Mikhail Chigir, Former Prime Minister (86,308);

Yury Dankov, businessman, member of the Minsk City Soviet (80,940);

Leonid Kalugin, executive director of Atlant, Minsk-based refrigerator plant (95,699);

Sergey Kalyakin, leader of the Party of Communists of Belarus (96,957);

Konstantin Kononovich, unemployed engineer (686);

Pavel Kozlovsky, former Defense Minister (80,683);

Mikhail Marinich, former Belarusian ambassador to Latvia, Estonia and Finland [On July 26, Marinich resigned from his position as the Ambassador-Ed.] (96,295);

Zyanon Paznyak, exiled leader of the Conservative Christian Party of the Belarusian Popular Front (75,818);

Leonid Sinitsyn, former head of the presidential administration (86,034);

Sergei Skrebets, member of the House of Representatives, lower chamber of the National Assembly, director of BelBabayevskoye, trading house (13,618);

Viktor Tereshchenko, 13th Supreme Soviet deputy and director of the Minsk-based private International Institute of Management (68,307);

Alexander Yaroshuk, leader of the Trade Union of Agro-industrial Workers (76,312).

Yermoshina said that district and regional election commissions will continue to check the results of the signatures-collection campaign until July 31 and August 4, respectively, but the final count would hardy lead to great changes. She expressed her surprise that so many potential candidates dropped out of the race and asked the four remaining contenders to register. The initiative groups of Leonid Sinitsyn, Mikhail Chigir, Mikhail Marinich, Sergei Kalyakin, and Zyanon Paznyak argued that they filed more voter signatures than Yermoshina announced. (Belapan, July 24)

OSCE, RUSSIAN ELECTION COMMISSION TO OBSERVE BELARUSIAN ELECTIONS

On July 24, Amb. Gerard Stoudmann, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Alexander Veshnyakov, Chair of the Russian Federation Central Election Commission, and Zoltan Toth, Secretary General of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO), held consultations in Warsaw on observation of the presidential elections in Belarus. The participants reached an agreement that Russian observers will be deployed within the framework of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission to Belarus. The OSCE/ODIHR mission will closely co-ordinate its activities with an observation mission to be deployed by the ACEEEO, which has already received and accepted an invitation to observe. The ACEEEO has already completed its first mission to Belarus and has shared its report with the ODIHR, which concurs with its conclusions and recommendations. Pending an invitation from the Government of Belarus, the ODIHR will establish an Election Observation Mission based in Minsk by the beginning of August. [On July 24, Lydia Yermoshina, chair of the Central Commission for Elections and National Referenda, told journalists that the ACEEEO recommendations were sent for consideration to Lukashenko, adding that since the Belarusian parliamentarians are on vacation, it is up to the president to make amendments to the electoral law.-Ed.]. (OSCE, July 24)

US AMBASSADOR URGES BELARUSIAN AUTHORITIES TO HOLD FREE ELECTIONS

The United States are ready to normalize relations with Belarus if the country's authorities are to conduct the presidential elections in accordance with the OSCE standards, said Michael Kozak, the U.S. Ambassador to Belarus. "The U.S. would be willing to accept the outcomes of the voting no matter who wins, provided the election process is held under OSCE criteria," said Amb. Kozak, adding that the Belarusian authorities are perfectly aware of all steps, which need to be undertaken for the elections to be recognized as fair and transparent. "Our possibilities of rendering more significant assistance to Belarus directly depend on the Belarusian government's fulfillment of its international commitments on human rights, free, fair and transparent electoral process," said the Ambassador. (Charter 97, July 24)

RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTS VISIT BELARUS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS

On July 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma arrived to the Krupenino presidential residence near the city of Vitebsk, about 135 miles (216 kilometers) northeast of Minsk for a meeting with Alexander Lukashenko that the opposition considered a tacit endorsement of Lukashenko's re-election bid. The official reason for the three leaders' meeting was to promote cooperation between the three Slavic nations, as well as trade and political ties, reported Itar-Tass. They also visited the Slaviansky Bazaar, an annual festival of music and dance in Vitebsk, and delivered speeches at the closing ceremony. "I consider Putin's and Kuchma's arrival as an act of support for Lukashenko, because they knew they were coming to Belarus during the so-called presidential race," said Vyacheslav Sivchik, deputy chair of the Belarusian Popular Front and head of the Center to Promote Opposition Representatives to Election Commissions. "That can be considered a show of support for an odious dictatorship in the center of Europe," he added. Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the opposition United Civil Party, said that Lukashenko would try to benefit from his counterparts' visit, but he predicted that Putin in particular would not put his support behind the Belarusian leader. "I am not inclined to see this visit as a sign of public support from Ukraine and Russia for Lukashenko. It seems to me that the Kremlin will occupy a position of neutrality and Putin will be cautious to the end," he said.

When the heads of the three states were leaving the city, a few dozen activists of Zubr, a nation-wide youth opposition movement, formed a human chain on both sides of a road, holding the portraits of the disappeared politicians, reported Charter 97. The action was prepared secretly and came as a complete surprise to the police. No arrests were reported. Viasna Human Rights Center reported that fearing mass opposition actions, the Vitebsk police arrested and held in custody for more than three hours Yury Korban, Konstantin Smolikov, Victor Shlyakhtin, Andrei Kaporikov, Tatiana Chebotareva, all members of the Vitebsk branch of the Malady (Youth) Front, and Oleg Korban, Ivan Tomashevich, Boris Goretsky, Marina Konopelko, Anastasia Karpovich, all activists of the Minsk branch of the Malady (Youth) Front. (Itar-Tass- Charter 97- Viasna Human Rights Center, July 25)

IHF: NO SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN BELARUS

On July 18, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the Belarus Helsinki Committee, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and the Ukrainian Committee Helsinki 90 appealed to Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma urging them to refrain from visiting Belarus before the elections and to continue to support free, democratic and transparent elections there. The following are excerpts from the letter:

"Our organizations have for a long time spoken out about the grave human rights situation in Belarus. Unfortunately, there are no signs of improvement in the human rights situation. On the contrary, new information has come to light, which seems to indicate that government officials might have been involved in serious crimes surrounding the still unexplained 'disappearances' of prominent citizens of Belarus."

"Civil society observers have reported repeated and systematic violations of law and international standards during the present presidential electoral campaign. It seems that the present regime is using the considerable means at its disposal, including the state dominated media, to win the September elections."

"Against that background, a meeting of the Heads of State of Russia and Ukraine with the acting president of Belarus at the closing ceremonies of this year's Slaviansky Bazaar music festival in Vitebsk, would most definitely be seen by the Belarusian voters as a direct intervention in the presidential race in support of the incumbent. The state media have already exploited the planned meeting for propaganda ends."

The full text of the letter can be found at: http://www.ihf-hr.org/appeals/180701-2.htm

ELECTION COMMISSION ADOPTS MEDIA ACCESS RULES FOR CANDIDATES

On July 25, the Central Commission for Elections and National Referenda adopted a resolution regulating the presidential candidates' access to the state media. In accordance with the document, each registered candidate is allowed to publish his election platform in eight national newspapers, including Belaruskaya Niva, Zvyazda, Znamya Yunosti, Sovetskaya Belorussiya, Chyrvonaya Zmena, Narodnaya Gazeta, 7 Dnei, and Respublika. August 19 was set as a deadline
for the candidates to submit their election platforms. Apart form that, each hopeful will be given two hours of free air time on the state television and radio. The candidates are expected to carry out their election campaigns on August 15- September 8. (Nasha Svaboda, July 27 )

--HUMAN RIGHTS AND OPPOSITION NEWS--

TWO ZUBR ACTIVISTS SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS OF HARD LABOR

On July 26, Judge Anatoly Borisenok of the Partyzansky District Court of Minsk sentenced
Aleksey Shydlouski, a student at the private Institute of Modern Knowledge, and Sergei Koktysh, former student of the department of journalism at the Belarusian State University, to two years in a hard-labor colony each under Art. 218, para 1 of the Belarusian Criminal Code (desecration and damage to property). Anatoly Elizar and Alexander Ermakov, two other former students at the Belarusian State University, were fined 100 minimal wages each for the same offence. The activists were arrested on January 26 for writing anti-Lukashenko graffiti and pasting "Zubr" stickers on walls of the apartment buildings on Kozlov street and the building of the Partyzansky District Executive Committee of Minsk. In February 1998, Alexey Shydlouski was found guilty of criminal hooliganism for a similar graffiti offense and served an 18-month prison term in hard-labor colony. More information can be found at: http://www.zubr-belarus.com

CASE OF DISAPPEARED JOURNALIST SENT TO MINSK REGION COURT

On July 23, Valentin Sukalo, chair of the Belarusian Supreme Court, told a press conference that
the case of Valery Ignatovich and Maksim Malik, both former officers of the Almaz (Diamond) Special-Assignment Police Force, Aleksey Guz, former student of the Police Academy, and Sergei Savushkin, a former convict, who are accused of committing nine felonies, including the kidnapping of Dmitry Zavadsky, ORT cameraman missing since July 7, 2000, will be considered by the Minsk Region Court. (Viasna Human Rights Center, July 24)

AMBASSADOR ACCUSES OPPOSITION OF "REVEALING DIRTY LINEN"

On July 27, in response to Jackson Diehl's July 1 op-ed column, "Flight From a Death Squad in Belarus" in the Washington Post [See the full article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1962-2001Jun29.html] based on an interview with Dmitry Petrushkevich and Oleg Sluchek, the two former investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office who fled Belarus, accusing the Lukashenko regime of forming a death squad to murder opposition politicians, Valery Tsepkalo, the Belarusian Ambassador to the U.S., replied that "it is true that some people have disappeared in Belarus, but until the investigation is over it is wrong to judge whether these cases are of political or criminal origin." "The Belarusian government is taking all possible measures to investigate these cases and is intent on bringing the guilty to trial," the Ambassador wrote. According to him, the Belarusian government is doing everything possible to ensure that the forthcoming presidential election will be open, free and democratic and in full compliance with the OSCE standards. Amb. Tsepkalo invited representatives of the international community to come to Belarus and draw their own conclusions as to the transparency of the electoral process. "During election campaigns in any country, some parties try to promote their candidates at the cost of revealing dirty linen of other candidates. Bear this in mind before publishing articles in a newspaper as respected as The Post," concluded Tsepkalo.

In an open letter, 55 opposition members and other prominent Belarusians demanded the creation of an independent commission, which should include foreign experts, to investigate the alleged involvement of Belarusian high-ranking officials in the disappearances, reported Charter 97. They also demanded that Lukashenko be barred from the election for allegedly failing to initiate an investigation, and that three government members be fired: Victor Sheiman, the former head of the Security Council who is now Prosecutor-General; Yuri Sivakov, the former interior minister who is now a top member of the presidential administration, and Sub.-Lieut. Dmitry Pavluchenko, special forces commander. (Charter 97, July 26- The Washington Post, July 27)

CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND JOURNALIST FINED

On July 20, the Moskovsky District Court of Minsk fined Vera Stremkovskaya, a prominent civil rights attorney, 60,000 BYB (about $50) and Oleg Gruzdilovitch, journalist of Radio Liberty, 500,000 BYB (about $450) for slandering Anatoly Smolentsev, chief of the investigation of a criminal case against Vasily Starovoitov, former head of the Rassvet collective farm, whom Stremkovskaya defended. Smolentsev claimed that on March 4, 1999, Stremkovskaya defamed him by asking what happened to 40 bottles of cognac confiscated during the search at Starovoitov's house, thus implying that Smolentsev had taken the cognac for his own consumption. Stremkovskaya told a Belapan correspondent that she believes that her question was legitimate. Gruzdilovitch, then a correspondent of Naviny, an opposition newspaper, used this information in an article titled "Where is Starovoitov's cognac?" published on April 14, 1999. On September 31, 1999, Naviny was closed after it lost a libel suit to Victor Sheiman, secretary of the Belarusian State Security Council, and was required to pay an exorbitant fine of 15 billion old BYB (about $15,000). It later re-opened as Nasha Svaboda. The newspaper was fined 800,000 BYB (about $730) and ordered to publish an apology. Stremkovskaya and Gruzdilovitch appealed the court's ruling. [Starovoitov had been released from a corrective labor camp in November 1999 after two years' imprisonment for allegedly embezzling state credits. Domestic human right groups believe that Starovoitov was arrested to draw attention away from a poor harvest on heavily subsidized state farms.-Ed.]. (Viasna Human Rights Center, July 24)

OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS STAND TRIAL FOR UNAUTHORIZED PICKETING

On July 23, Judge Natalya Voitsekhovich of the Centralny District Court of Minsk fined Yaroslav Shestakov 20 minimum wages (about $100) and issued a warning to Vasily Zhakov, both Zubr activists, for "participation in mass actions that violated public order" under Art. 167, par. 1, of the Administrative Offenses Code. On July 18, Shestakov and Zhakov along with eight other organization's members, staged unauthorized picket near the Lukashenko administration building where Vladimir Yermoshin, Belarusian Prime Minister, was holding meeting with Chinese president Jiang Zemin. The activists chanted "Free Tibet" and held photographs of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama protesting against China's policies in Tibet. Eight protesters were forced in a minibus and taken to the Sovetsky District Internal Affairs Directorate. Earlier, Anatoly Podokshin was fined 20 minimum wages for the same offence. (Viasna Human Rights Center, July 24)

HARASSMENT OF INDEPENDENT MEDIA CONTINUES IN BELARUS

Ahead of the presidential election, the authorities have set about putting under total control all elements of public activity, starting with the independent media and its technical equipment. The police of the Khotimsky District, Mogilev Region, confiscated all office equipment of Belarussky Uskhod (Belarusian East), the only local independent newspaper on the grounds that the newspaper's staff violated Lukashenko's Decree No. 8 "On Certain Measures of Regulation of the Procedure of Receipt and Use of the Foreign Gratuitous Aid," which stipulates that "the foreign gratuitous aid in any form may not be used for preparation and holding of elections, referendums, recall of a deputy, member of the Council of the Republic, for holding gatherings, meetings, street marches, demonstrations, picketing, strikes, production and dissemination of agitation materials, as well as for holding seminars and other forms of agitation and mass work with the population." Under the decree, the recipient's legal entities who have used the foreign gratuitous aid (completely or partially) not for the earmarked purpose, shall be fined up to 100 percent of the value of the foreign gratuitous aid received, or confiscation of the goods (property) received. The sum of the fine and the sums received from the sale of confiscated property are deposited into the Republican budget revenues.

Earlier this month, police in Krichev, Mogilev Region, raided and sealed the office of Volny Gorod (Free City), local independent newspaper, and seized three computers, two of which are the property of the U.S. Embassy, scanner, camcorder, TV, and VCR (see Belarus Update Vol. 4, No. 28)

On July 24, the office of Den (Day), a Minsk-based independent newspaper, was burglarized
for the second time within a week. All materials for the special issue about the regime's involvement in murdering of its political opponents and computer system blocks were stolen again. In July 7's issue of the newspaper, Ivan Titenkov, Lukashenko's powerful aide from July 1994 to December 1999, said that the government was behind the disappearances of opposition figures, and had spent some $20 million on wire-tapping equipment. The issue was confiscated. The State Committee for Press warned the newspaper that on August 1 it will be closed.

"The authorities do not even pretend they comply with the law," the Belarusian Association of Journalists, BAJ, said in an appeal. "Economic, legal and ideological discrimination of non-state media is now augmented by methods of purely criminal nature." The organization called on foreign colleagues to uphold the independent Belarusian press and to deliver to the governments of their countries full and objective information about the political situation in Belarus. It urged the Russian newsmakers not to provide informational support to the regime until it accounts for the whereabouts of vanished opposition politicians and improves the media climate in the country. (Viasna Human Rights Center, July 24- BAJ, July 27)

SON OF FORMER BELARUSIAN BANKER TO STAND TRIAL

In the first week of August 2001, the Centralny District Court of Minsk will hear the case of Sergei Vinnikov, 26, who on March 23, 2001, was charged with drug trafficking under Art. 328, para 3 of the Belarusian Criminal Code, an offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison, reported Nasha Svaboda. He was arrested on March 21, 2001, in Minsk while trying to sell five grams of heroin. Sergei is a younger son of Tamara Vinnikova, a former chair of the Belarus National Bank who now lives in exile in Great Britain. She believes that her son's arrest was a provocation and the KGB's revenge. (Nasha Svaboda, July 27)

-AT HOME IN BELARUS-

GERMAN CITIZEN SENTENCED TO SEVEN-YEAR PRISON TERM FOR SPYING

On July 23, 2001, Judge Vladimir Davidov of the Belarusian military court sentenced Christopher Letz, a German citizen, to seven years in a tight security prison camp for espionage, reported Interfax. The charge carried a maximum sentence of 15 years behind bars. According to Ivan Suchover, the prosecutor, Letz apologized to the Belarusian government, thus mitigating his guilt. It will be backdated to the date Lez was arrested last September. Judge Davidov found Letz, 53, guilty of "having carried out espionage activities, having gathered secret state information with a view to sending it to a foreign state, having collected and transmitted at the request of a foreign service information which was detrimental to the interests of Belarus." According to the prosecution, Letz had recruited a group of Belarusian nationals who worked as agents under his guidance. Col. Fyodor Kotov, head of the Belarusian KGB press service, said that Letz ran a joint venture company in Belarus which served as a cover for his covert activities for five years. He did not provide further details of the case.

Letz did not respond to reporter's questions after the sentence was announced. His lawyer, Vasily Karpov, said that they hope for a pardon and will not file an appeal. The fact that the accused is not appealing suggests he is counting on an amnesty after the presidential elections, or on a trade of prisoners.

Prior to his arrest, Letz was a faculty member at the prestigious U.S.-German Marshall Center for Strategic Studies in Garmisch, southern Germany. In 1984, Letz, a former Polish military officer, defected to the West. He had been arrested in Moscow by the Russian Federal Security Service on September 15, 2000, upon request of the Belarusian authorities, when he was about to meet with one of his colleagues from the Minsk Academy of Information Sciences, and transferred to the KGB prison in Minsk. He was a visiting professor at the Academy at the time of his arrest. (Nasha Svaboda- Interfax- Belapan, July 23-24)

-UPCOMING EVENTS-

Valery T. Tsepkalo, Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus to the United States, is to speak at the National Press Club Afternoon Newsmaker Program on August 30 at 2 p.m. in the Murrow Room of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Amb. Tsepkalo will discuss the presidential elections in Belarus including the programs of presidential candidates, the stages of the presidential campaign, domestic and international election observation and the political and socio-economic situation. CONTACT INFO: Peter Hickman of the National Press Club, 202-662-7593 or Sergei Rachkov of the Embassy of Belarus, 202-986-1704

July 31-August 3- delegation of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe to visit Belarus

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For daily updates, visit our partners website, Charter 97, www.charter97.org with news in Belarusian, Russian, and English.

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The Belarus Update is a regular news bulletin of the Belarus Human Rights Support Project of the International League for Human Rights. The League, now in its 60th year, is New York-based human rights NGO in consultative status with the United Nations.

The Belarus project was established to support Belarusian citizens in making their cases before the U.S. government and public and international fora and intergovernmental organizations regarding Alexander Lukashenko's wholesale assault on human rights and the rule of law in Belarus.

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