BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/04/2008

Lukashenko says Belarus opposition gets foreign financial support

MINSK, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused on Tuesday the country's opposition movement of receiving financial support from abroad.

Lukashenko also said it was "absurd" for the country's civil society to exist on handouts from foreign states, saying that it should develop without what he sarcastically called "foreign agriculturists and fertilizers."

The president also accused the opposition of being in favor of Western sanctions against Belarus.

"Opposition activists lose sleep when somebody in the West says a kind word about Belarus. Their actions are not concerned with the interests of the country or its citizens." he said.

Belarus has long been criticized by the West for its human rights record, and its authoritarian image was further damaged last month when over 100 opposition protesters were arrested during a march in central Minsk.

The U.S. and the European Union have accused Lukashenko of clamping down on dissent, stifling the media and rigging elections. Lukashenko, who was re-elected to a third term in 2006, and other senior Belarusian officials have been blacklisted from entering the U.S. and EU.

Tensions between Belarus and the U.S. heightened after Washington imposed sanctions last November against Belarus's state-controlled petrochemical company Belneftekhim and froze the assets of its U.S. subsidiary. American companies were also banned from dealing with the company.

U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart 'temporarily' left Belarus on March 12 after a request from Belarusian authorities. She has yet to return.

Source:

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080429/106205263.html

Google