BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/04/2006

Europe Imposes Travel Restrictions on Belarus Officials

By C. J. CHIVERS

MOSCOW, April 10 - The European Union today imposed travel restrictions on President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko and 30 officials in Belarus, blocking their entrance to much of Europe as punishment for election tampering and violent crackdowns in the former Soviet state.

The decision, widely expected after a presidential election, criticized by Washington and other nations as rigged, and police violence against antigovernment demonstrators in Belarus last month, is effective immediately.

The European Union cited not only the recent events in Belarus, including a rigged election on March 19 and beatings and detentions of opposition members and foreigners, but the disappearances in 1999 and 2000 of four opposition figures who are suspected of being murdered by the state.

The union also reiterated public support for Belarus's nascent opposition, some of which has received funding from European governments and the United States. And it vowed to expand contacts and support an independent news media.

"Opposition candidates and their supporters have offered the Belarusian population a democratic alternative," today's European Union statement said. The European community, it added, will "intensify and facilitate people-to-people contacts and enhance access to independent sources of information."

Under Mr. Lukashenko, often referred to as Europe's last dictator, Belarus has virtually no independent news media. Its three state-controlled television stations endlessly flatter the president and criticize his perceived foes.

Mr. Lukashenko, who was sworn into a third term as president on Saturday, has shown little public concern for sanctions.

He appeared at the inauguration ceremony wearing a military uniform, and bluntly scolded the West for what he described as its efforts to encourage revolutions patterned after those have changed post-Soviet governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan since 2003.

"Get busy with restoring order in your own countries," he said, in remarks aimed West, according to a transcript prepared by the BBC. "Belarus has a robust immune system. Your clumsy attempts to plant the virus of revolution have produced the reverse effect and have become an antidote for this color disease."

The list of officials banned from travel to Europe include senior members of the presidential administration, as well as the two top officials of the K.G.B., the state security agency, which retains its Soviet name. It also includes election supervisors, judges and a prosecutor involved in processing cases against opposition members.

The list substantially reflected a proposed list of 47 officials created and circulated by Western diplomats last month in Minsk, except that it did not include state journalists the previous list recommended for sanctions.

Their omission reflects a divergence in opinion among diplomats about how to classify the state journalists, who are regarded by some Western countries, including the United States, as K.G.B. officers; other diplomats worry that sanctions against them could lead to retaliatory restrictions against Western newsgathering in the region.

Regardless of Mr. Lukashenko's displays of public confidence, the European Union's decision puts him in rare company.

Other public officials barred from entering the union include security officers responsible for the bloody crackdown in 2005 Andijon, Uzbekistan, and indicted war criminals and those in their close circles. The only other heads of state banned from the European Union nations are President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the leaders of the military junta now controlling Burma.

"You can see the company in which these guys are," Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for the union's high representative, Javier Solana, said in a telephone interview. Ms. Gallach said the list will continue to be reviewed and may grow.

Immediately after the travel ban was imposed today, Mr. Lukashenko's government labeled the action "short-sighted" and said sanctions would only aggravate relations between Belarus and the West.

"We have repeatedly stated to our European partners that restrictive policy toward Belarus is groundless, farfetched and useless," Andrei Popov, the spokesman for Belarus's foreign ministry said in a statement. "Real understanding and constructive cooperation are obviously reached through dialogue, but not imposed with sanctions."

Nikolai I. Lozovik, the deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission and one of the Belarussian officials whose travel was restricted, said he was proud to be included. He said the sanctions are a case of European political pressure and double standards. "Good is called bad, and bad is called good," he said. "I would be offended if in this situation I was considered a person who was corresponding with European standards."

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/europe/10cnd-belarus.html