November 30, 1998
Dear Ms. Fitzpatrick:

We are writing to you in order to clarify a few points raised in your letter dated October 15, 1998.

We regret that we cannot provide you with a copy of our Mission communication to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, in fact, had been drafted by us. We are precluded from doing so by our internal regulations that stipulate the confidential nature of such correspondence.

At the same time we must state clearly that nothing in the Mission's letter to the Ministry said about the "secrecy of pre-trial investigation" being "disclosed" by Ms. Stremkovskaya. Nor this letter contained any assessment of Mr. Pastukhov or Ms. Stremkovsakya's statement from the point of view of their compliance with Belarusian legislation or legal ethics.

Actually in this letter the Mission had only informed the Ministry that, while speaking at the briefing, Ms. Stemkovskaya had touched upon the facts of arrests of Messrs. Kudinov, Klimov, and Starovoytov. Therefore, as you can see, we had not written any "sort of denunciation of Ms. Stremkovskaya's remarks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs" (as you state in your letter), but had merely summarized a part of her statements at the briefing for the Ministry. We may assure you that this represents a common and normal practice of unbiased reporting to the capital on any event in which the Mission employees participate.

We have been informed by the Ministry that the Mission's communication had been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice without any additions or recommendations. There had been absolutely no requests to "take measures" which you refer to in your letter.

We would also like to point out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Belarusian missions abroad do not regulate the Belarusian Collegium of Advocates' activities. Both the Ministry and the Permanent Mission of Belarus to the United Nations did not comment in any ways on Ms. Stremkovskaya's compliance with national legislation or rules of professional ethics.

We hope, Ms. Fitzpatrick, that this misunderstanding will not affect the well-established contacts between the League and the Mission.

Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Vantsevich,
Igar Gubarevich