BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/04/2006

Barring Belarus

Editorial

The Providence Journal

The European Union is rightly ratcheting up the pressure on Belarus, making its President Alexander Lukashenko _ often called the "last dictator in Europe" _ an international pariah. Last week, the E.U. imposed travel restrictions on Lukashenko and other top government officials, barring their entry to E.U. countries, in protest of his brutal assault on freedom in his country.

Lukashenko rigged the March 19 Belarusian election _ he "won" with 83 percent of the vote, against his nearest challenger's 6 percent _ and his henchmen beat and detained political opponents and foreigners. His government is also suspected in the disappearance of four opposition members in 1999 and 2000, who are believed to have been killed. Lukashenko now joins such august company as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and the military junta that controls Myanmar (formerly Burma) in being barred from traveling in the European Union.

The United States is reportedly planning a similar ban, along with economic sanctions. Further steps by the E.U., such as freezing the assets of Belarus's leaders, are also being contemplated.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko's ally Russia is applying pressure to assume dominance over Belarus. Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, has set an April 30 deadline for Lukashenko to either give up control of Beltransgaz, the state-owned company that transmits Russian gas to Europe, or start paying what Russia deems market rates for its energy. Belarus's cut-rate energy, which costs Russians billions of dollars a year, is behind what Lukashenko calls his "economic miracle." Without being thus propped up, Belarus's economy could well collapse, along with the pensions Lukashenko has promised the people.

Clearly, the last dictator of Europe is worried that what has happened in other former Soviet satellites _ the uprising of people who hunger for freedom and wish to control their lives _ could happen in Belarus. At his inauguration, on Saturday, he defiantly declared, "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." "Color" refers to the Orange Revolution that erupted in next-door Ukraine after election fraud in 2004.

Strong pressure from the world shows the people of Belarus that the international community is watching, and that someone cares. Self-determination for Belarus is in the interest of the West, and of justice and freedom everywhere.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)

Source:

http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=EDBELARUS-04-18-06