BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

October 15, 2005

Deutsche Welle Broadcasts Build Tension Between Berlin and Moscow

(AXcess News) Berlin - Deutsche Welle radio broadcasts in authoritarian-ruled Belarus is creating tension between Berlin and Moscow, German media reports.

The Deutche Welle radio broadcasts are in Russian and are delivered every 15 minutes, offering information on the opposition in Belarus that is not reported by state-controlled media. The EU is subsidizing the program.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, President Vladimir Putin's authorized agent in charge of relations with the EU, accused the Europeans of using methods from the Cold War arsenal. According to Yastrzhembsky, the shortwave program is a form of "interference in the affairs of a sovereign state" - that is, Belarus, whose regime counts itself among the Kremlin's allies.

Moscow and Minsk fear that Lukashenko's opponents will attract support, since the opposition recently agreed on physicist Alexander Milinkevich as the joint candidate for the presidential election next July. Yet the concerns of those in power about the destabilizing influence of Western media is possibly unfounded.

A study commissioned by Deutsche Welle shows that more than 83 percent of Belarus' citizens have never received Russian-language programs from the German broadcasting station. More than 42 percent of those polled are even of the opinion that the state-controlled media in Minsk portray the politics and life of Western countries appropriately. Hence the director of Deutsche Welle, Erik Bettermann, places his hopes primarily on the coming generations in the country.

Source:

http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=6127

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