By Larysa SAYENKO, The Day
The first Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka marked his fifth year
in office as ruler of this country of ten 10 million. Under the Constitution
this would have also been be the end of his term, but for the referendum
which prolonged it until 2001 and which is not recognized by the West and
local opposition.
"I want to warn you and all those interested here and now; there is
no July 20 in the sense it is understood by the opposition," the 44-year-old
President warned the OSCE mission ahead of time.
"Lukashenka will not be a legitimate President after July 20," a Western
diplomat noted later, "but he will actually remain head of the state. We
will have to negotiate with him, even if this is a purely pragmatic decision.
And the residents of Minsk, having planted potatoes all over the suburbs,
do not seem disturbed by his illegitimate status. The country's isolation
and hunger are strengthening his dictatorship."
On the morning of July 20, Reform & Order's Youth Council and Young
Rukh members began to picket the Belarusian Embassy at 6 Sichneve Povstannia
Street in Kyiv. "We demand that the freedom of speech and choice be secured
in Belarus," Reform & Order declared prior to the picketing. The party's
faction in Verkhovna Rada issued a statement on the situation in Belarus,
signed by representatives of three Right Center factions. In part, the
document calls on Lukashenka and his government to restore democracy and
honor their commitments to observe human rights and release political prisoners.
One French Foreign Ministry official responsible for Eastern European
policy told The Day that the EU countries recognize the fact that
President Lukashenka is no longer legitimate as of July 20, on the one
hand, and on the other support the idea that from now on the international
community must uphold relations not with him personally, but with Belarus.
Hence, no statements are expected from the West.
Five years ago, this charismatic leader, addressing the people using
the vernacular and longing for the USSR, promised to return his country
to the cloudless Soviet past of the Brezhnev period, uprooting corruption,
plotting a course toward a union with the then fraternal Russia, revive
industries, and "shake off" businessmen.
And Belarus, with its overall employment, "egalitarianism," and state
enforcement, became an island of socialism in Europe, an outcast from European
structures, a country kept alive by using up its last resources, having
no financial inflow from outside. The populace's incomes in dollar terms
have dropped twofold.
Yet the five year presidency is summed up in pompous official television
programs, stressing that there is no hunger and no bombs are falling on
Belarus.
Despite obviously falling living standards, Lukashenka's popularity
remains high. According to the Independent Institute for Sociopolitical
Research, 45% of the people still support the President and the percentage
is practically unchanged for over five years. The opposition remains weak,
torn by strife, and can come up with no figure spectacular enough to contend
with the current leader.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka, former collective farm chairman, has staged two
referenda during his time in office, changed the national symbols back
to Soviet ones, gave the Russian language an official status, crowding
out Belarusian, and set up a regime completely subordinated to the President
(even district court judges are appointed by him).
Today's exponent of a union state with Russia, indefatigable opponent
of the West and "NATO monster," and Milosevic's fast friend, Lukashenka
made his foreign political debut by ordering a balloon shot down over Belarus
in the fall of 1994, killing a US and a Swiss balloonist.
Last June he ordered all diplomats (except the Russian ambassador) expelled
from the suburban residence of Drozdy, for he did not want them as neighbors
of his villa. EU countries recalled their envoys for almost a year and
barred Lukashenka access to their territories. An understanding was reached
only this spring, after the diplomats agreed to find a different locality
and Belarus undertook to pay compensation. No payment has been made to
this date.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka quarreled even with big brother Boris Yeltsin
when the Russian President interceded for ORT Television journalists Pavel
Sheremet and Dmitry Zavadsky, arrested in 1997 for shooting an episode
on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. As a result, Yeltsin once even forbade
Lukashenka to visit Russian regions frequented by the Belarusian leader.
Today, he is all for setting up a single state with Russia, expecting
in return to be appointed Vice President. At least. Yet the Kremlin, while
welcoming integration, is more concerned with its own problems in view
of coming parliamentary and presidential elections.
Lukashenka, who plays professional hockey in his spare time, prefers
arm-twisting politics and has so far got off scot-free. He has always ignored
voices from the West. This month, however, he attempted a rapprochement.
His courteous gesture did not pass unnoticed. Belarus and OSCE recently
decided to let bygones be bygones, provided fair and free elections to
the National Assembly take place in Belarus in 2000.
Moreover, if Lukashenka proves as good as his word and Belarus really
takes a general European course, the West says it will lift economic sanctions
and support its admission to European structures.
"It is impossible to move forward with one's eyes glued to the rearview
mirror," French Ambassador Bernard Fassier noted several days ago.
"It is a conspiracy with the dictator," exclaimed an opposition leader,
one of those who placed excessive hope in the West.
It looks as though, after the Yugoslav crisis, the West wants to replace
the stick with the carrot, but only if there is democratization.
Despite the political thaw promised by the West, Lukashenka declared
that protest actions in downtown Minsk will from now on be banned, and
that they will be severely suppressed in accordance with the law to protect
residents.
Minsk
NOTA BENE
President Lukashenka once said that there are fair and unfair journalists.
The former are, of course, those employed by the government-run media,
and the latter all independent journalists. Zhanna Litvina, President of
the Belarusian Journalists' Union, says that the independent democratic
press is being murdered in there. The law guarantees freedom of information
activities, yet the regime has no intention to allow this freedom to be
exercised. Journalists are not put to death but arrested, tortured, and
maimed. Their cameras are opened and the film exposed. Sometimes anonymous
assailants wearing civilian clothes throw journalists into cars, take them
to the forest and "teach" them what to write and how. Journalists are summoned
to the KGB, prosecutor's office or militia stations for dressing down.
The Belarusian media is controlled by the State Committee for the Press,
which constantly warns periodicals of violation of the law On the Press
and Other Media.
The Belarusian Embassy's memorandum states among other things: "There
are 1,026 newspapers and magazines officially registered in Belarus, of
which one-third are government-controlled. In addition to 112 government
printing houses, 117 nongovernmental ones function on equal economic terms.
Only 54 of 228 publishing houses are run by the government. There are 145
television and radio stations, of which 83 are nongovernmental."
According to Zhanna Litvina, "practically all more or less quality-equipped
print shops are monopolized by the state. The country's largest government
publishing company, the Belarusian House of the Press, is absolutely inaccessible
to the absolute majority of independent newspapers, although is currently
working at only 50% of capacity. About 250 nongovernmental publications
are actually in a state of clinical death and their editions appear once
a year. The total print run of all the other independent sociopolitical
publications does not exceed that of Sovetskaya Belarussiya (Soviet Belarus)
founded by the Presidential Administration.
Compiled by Olha HODOVANETS








