BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

05/06/2005

EU vs Belarus: who creates barriers (sanctions for whom?)

Mikhail Doroshevich

Situation in Belarus has become one of the frequently discussed issues at the EU representative bodies meetings. It is said that the EU policy should be aimed at isolation of Belarusian illegitimate governing bodies, and that support to Belarusian civil society is a basic principle of European policies. That looks reasonable in theory.

But Belarusian citizens see the policy is quite the reverse. If they want to get a Schengen visa, they should spent two ore more days standing in the street at the doors of French or German embassies.

The queue to the German Embassy is guarded by OMON (Lukashenko's special police troops which are normally used to beat protesting people and which are so often criticized t for their brutal and illegal actions). This is the first line of defence.

Militia at the very entrance to the Embassy's territory is the second line of defence.

Then there are German guards who say that they cannot speak neither Belarusian nor Russian.

It may be explained by the security issues. But criminals will always find illegal ways to get anything they want to. And they will hardly be stopped by these decorative "protection".

As for illegitimate governing bodies- they do not have any problems at all. Those who want to, have diplomatic or special passports issued not by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (as for ordinary citizens), but by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they never stand in the queue, never asked any questions, as clerks from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bring these passports in the envelopes to an embassy. A very quick and formal procedure for all of them except of that tiny score in the EU list.

So, welcome to EU, civil society actors!

Then you enter the German Embassy and come to one of nine windows and pass your application documents to one of the girls without any badges with their names and positions (most of them Belarusian) - presumably embassy's clerks. It is obvious that they do not make decisions about visas. But they ask a great number of questions without making any notes. Should we suppose they will remember all the answers of dozens of people coming every day?

They ask very private questions using microphones and all the people still queuing before these windows can hear everything. Some questions are very humiliating and some are absolutely silly. I heard one applicant was asked to show his credit card. What could the clerk learn from just having a look at the card?

And if you do not take this treatment for granted, than a German comes out (again without any sign of his name or position) and simply shouts at you (in German).

If this is a standard procedure, then where is it fixed? Who adopted it and what for: to ban criminals, to isolate illegitimate government? We hope it works.

And the other question. Has biometric visas experiment been started by France in Minsk, the capital of the country (where people can get visa to Schengen countries only in French and German Embassies), in order to support civil society or to make it almost impossible to get visa ( unless you are not ready to spend days standing in a queue)? For other countries, French experiment has been launched in the consulates, not in the embassies: Annaba (Algeria), Bamako (Mali), Colombo (Sri Lanka), San Francisco (USA), and Shanghai (China ). http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3794 And French citizens are not all for biometric ID (see Joint position statement and petition 6 organisations (26.05.05, in French) http://www.ldh-france.org/actu_derniereheure.cfm?idactu=1059

So, who creates barriers for the freedom of movement of Belarusian citizens? Lukashenko? No. Getting a permission stamp is an absolutely formal procedure - no questions, practically no denials. You just submit a questionnaire (a very short one: date of birth, address, place of work and passport N)

It's Schengen countries themselves create obstacles for ordinary Belarusians. Again - not for governmental officials, not for criminals, but for those people they are going to support.

Procedures and attitudes in French and German Embassies may be not representative for the whole EU. Then, perhaps it is possible to open consulates of other countries in order not to overload French and German clerks.

And if they are interested in best practices, they can learn from the experience of Polish or Lithuanian Embassies. They may be not so eloquent, but much more friendly and helpful.

P.S. The experience with German Embassy was due to our attempt to get visa to the Nerthelands to participate in the OSCE conference 3rd Amsterdam Internet Conference on Guaranteeing Media Freedom on the Internet. The OSCE people did everything they could- we didn't stand in the queue and were let in immediately. But we didn't get visas.

Mikhail Doroshevich is a founder of e-belarus.org - a Minsk-based news and analytical site covering developments in ICT in Belarus and Information Policy Blog, which provides daily news about information policy in the world.

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