BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2005

Poland recalls envoy to protest Belarus raid

By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune

BERLIN The Polish government recalled its ambassador to Belarus and urged the European Union Thursday to impose sanctions on the leadership of the country after members of the riot police with guns and dogs stormed a building used by ethnic Poles near the border with Poland.

The predawn raid took place in the western town of Grodno, about 280 kilometers, or 175 miles, west of the capital, Minsk, where most of the country's 400,000 Poles - about 4 percent of the 10.4 million population - live.

It was the latest crackdown against the Polish minority and quickly exacerbated tensions between Belarus, one of the last Communist-style regimes of the former Soviet Union, and Poland, which joined the European Union last year.

Belarus jailed three Polish activists on Wednesday for as long as 15 days for holding an illegal street concert.

The Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and who is seeking a third term next year, has systematically quashed most forms of opposition to his rule, according to diplomats in Minsk. He had accused the Polish minority of "fomenting revolution," a charge dismissed by Polish diplomats, and there has been a recent series of tit-for-tat expulsions among diplomats from the two countries.

After a crisis meeting in Warsaw, Poland's deputy foreign minister, Jan Truszczynski, said, "We condemn the way human rights are being trampled by the authorities of Belarus."

It was then that the Poles recalled their ambassador in Belarus.

The Belarus authorities said Thursday night that there would be no immediate reaction to the recall.

Truszczynski said in a telephone interview, "Belarus is one of the last bastions of authoritarianism in Europe. The European Union will have to deal with these crackdowns in a more effective way. There should be some form of sanctions imposed on the leadership, including a travel ban."

In Belarus, diplomats said they were increasingly concerned with the crackdown and continuing efforts by the authorities to quash any independent movements in education, the news media, and political and social life.

Gregory Quinn, deputy head of mission at the British Embassy in Minsk, said, "The EU is keeping a close eye on the issue. It is very concerned about what is going on."

Poland and Lithuania, which have pushed hard to put Belarus on the EU's foreign policy agenda, said they would ask Britain, as current president of the EU, to take the lead in trying to impose sanctions on Lukashenko.

Both countries have also played a greater role in trying to encourage democracy on their eastern borders, which would include Belarus. Last December, President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and his Lithuanian counterpart, Valdas Adamkus helped mediate during Ukraine's Orange Revolution, which ousted a corrupt regime.

Soon after the Orange Revolution, Lukaschenko, who has done everything possible to insulate his country from democratic influences, boasted that Belarus would never go the same way as Ukraine.

But Truszczynski said the EU should do much more in trying to help the independent opposition, support nongovernmental organizations and promote independent news media.

Over 20,000 Poles in Belarus belong to the Union of Poles, an independent association that fosters the minority's cultural, linguistic and ethnic identity. It recently elected a new leadership, which Lukashenko said was illegal.

Truszczynski said, "This is not just about defending the Polish minority against the abuse of human rights. There is a widespread abuse of human rights. The authorities were trying to get rid of the Polish Union, one of the last bastions of independence."

Leading opposition members in Belarus said Thursday that Lukashenko's crackdown on the Union of Poland was designed to stir up ethnic tensions and divide the opposition before next year's elections.

Uladzimir Kobets, one of the leaders of ZUBR, an independent movement campaigning for democracy and freedom, said, "Lukashenko is cracking down on any independent voices just as the opposition is trying to agree on a single candidate to run in the elections next year. The authorities are also trying to create ethnic divisions to break the unity of the opposition."

Last year, in a bid to tighten his grip on power, Lukashenko held a referendum on constitutional changes that would remove any limits for the presidency and allow him to run again in 2006. According to official results, the referendum was passed by a wide margin and Lukashenko's allies were swept into power during parliamentary elections held at the same time.

Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the elections fell well short of international standards. The opposition, it said, had no access to the state-controlled news media and was finding it increasingly difficult to even find premises in which to organize their campaigns.

Last month, the Ministry of Justice said it would shut down the offices of parties and organizations in residential buildings under an order introduced last year. Most of the opposition party offices are in private apartments.

Agata Wierzbowska-Miazga, an expert on Belarus at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, which receives financial support from the Polish Foreign Ministry, said, "The state administration of Belarus owns nearly all office spaces in the country and refuses to rent them to the opposition."

Many of the legal addresses of the political parties have been annulled, "which means they face liquidation," Wierzbowska-Miazga added.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/28/news/poland.php

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