LUKASHENKA STAYS

"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