BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/04/2008

Center studying Belarus opens in Winfield

WINFIELD, Kan. (AP) -- Political dignitaries from Belarus planned to be on hand Saturday for the opening of a new center at Southwestern College dedicated to study of the eastern European nation.

They said the Center for Belarusian Studies had added importance as they believed their homeland is regressing toward a more totalitarian society.

"Our mission is to promote the revival of the Belarus nation through higher education," said David Swartz, former U.S. ambassador to Belarus and a Southwestern alum.

Belarus, a former part of the Soviet Union, is about the size of Kansas and also features a relatively flat topography. The country has more than 9 million residents -- three times that of Kansas -- and about 11,000 lakes created by centuries of glaciers.

Stanislav Shushkevich, a former chairman off the Belarusian Parliament, joined Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine in 1991 to declare the Soviet Union's demise, creating a commonwealth of independent states.

"I would like to see Belarus become more like Kansas," Shushkevich told The Wichita Eagle through an interpreter Friday.

Swartz was the first U.S. ambassador to Belarus after the 1991 dissolution. He said the early optimism that greeted that event and the promise of democracy has largely evaporated.

"I all of that time, we've seen things go from bad to worse in Belarus, whereas the rest of the former Soviet Union republics things seem to be improving and normalizing," said Swartz, a co-executive director of the center.

Shushkevich lost a controversial 1994 election to hard-liner Alexander Lukashenko, who has since amassed such power and control that the CIA describes him as a dictator.

Shushkevich said Lukashenko does whatever the government in Moscow tells him to do.

Ivonka Survilla, president of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile, also planned to attend Saturday's ceremony and called it "most important."

"There have never been any centers where people can come and study Belarusian culture, Belarusian history -- anything which is connected with Belarus," she said.

Survilla is the sixth leader off the democratic government that was created at the end of World War I and kicked out when communists seized power a few years later.

She called her homeland "the best-kept secret, not only in Europe but in the world."

Survilla said Moscow values Belarus for its natural resources and hardworking population "and they always wanted to have it stay within their empire."

She added that Belarusian need to learn more about Western society and ideas, which she said would show them that what they're being taught in their schools and universities is badly distorted.

Source:

http://www.hdnews.net/wirestories/k1020-BC-KS-BelarusCenter-04-19-0537

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