BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
26/03/2008
Belarus Riot Police Beat, Detain Dozens of Opposition Activists
By Michael Heath
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Belarus riot police beat and detained dozens of opposition activists in the capital, Minsk, when they broke up an unsanctioned rally yesterday marking the 90th anniversary of an independence declaration from Russia.
Pro-democracy groups celebrate March 25 as Freedom Day when an independent Belarus was declared in 1918. Independence lasted until Soviet Russia retook control after World War I ended.
Hundreds of protesters, many waving the red and white banner of the briefly independent state and the European Union flag, gathered in the city center before clashes broke out yesterday, according to images broadcast on Russian state channel Vest-24.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who won office in 1994 on pledges to control prices and boost ties with Russia, has criticized the anniversary as anti-Soviet. It has become a rallying point for the opposition.
About 80 opposition members were detained yesterday, Russia's Interfax news agency cited the Belarus Interior Ministry as saying.
An independent Belarus was declared after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, when the Soviet government ceded much of the west of the country to Germany in order to exit World War I. Soviet rule was restored after Germany's defeat in November 1918.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called Lukashenko ``Europe's last dictator'' for his crackdown on opposition groups in the country located between Poland and Russia. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Lukashenko's regime.
Sanctions Strengthened
Belarus withdrew its ambassador to Washington and told the U.S. to withdraw its envoy on March 7, a day after sanctions on oil and petrochemical company Belneftekhim were strengthened. Belneftekhim's assets were frozen in November because of Lukashenko's control of the company.
Ties with the U.S. will improve once the sanctions are lifted, Belarus Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Popov said.
``The American administration is striving to inflict maximum damage on the Belarus people and state to make the country submit to American interests,'' Popov said yesterday in a statement on the Foreign Ministry's Web site.
A report on Belarus state television this week accused the U.S. embassy of running a spy ring in the former Soviet republic.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed ``regret'' that the U.S. was forced to cut its number of personnel at the embassy in Minsk at the insistence of Belarus.
``We would like a different relationship with Belarus, but that can only happen when the government of Belarus shows commitment to respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,'' McCormack said in a statement two days ago.
The U.S. and EU accuse Lukashenko of shutting down independent media, jailing opponents and rigging elections.
He was re-elected in 2006 with 83 percent of the vote against 6.1 percent for second-placed Alexander Milinkevich, according to official results. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the vote didn't meet international standards. About 1,300 activists were arrested and held in the four months after the ballot, according to the opposition.
Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a8wloTgsqtbI&refer=europe
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