BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

15/11/2006

Sour Orange

by Mikhail Vanyashkin

Lukashenka's administration is still seeing red over the changed climate in neighboring Ukraine.

MINSK, Belarus | To celebrate 15 years of independence in August, Ukraine handed out awards to several foreigners in recognition of their contributions to international friendship.

Several Belarusians, including prominent writers Nil Hilevich, Siarhei Zakonnikau, and Ales Pashkevich, were honored for their part in "the improvement of Ukraine's image in the world and the promotion of its historical and modern achievements."

Poet Hilevich received the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, second class, together with the European Union's foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, and former Czech president Vaclav Havel. Zakonnikau and Pashkevich were awarded the Order of Merit.

When Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka distributed state awards last spring, the only Ukrainian deemed deserving of recognition was Soviet-era pop singer Mykola Hnatyuk, almost forgotten in his home country, who received the Francisak Skaryna Order for his participation in campaign concerts in support of the incumbent's re-election bid.

FORMER FRIENDS

Despite the Belarusian leader's many avowals of the unbreakable friendship between the Belarusians and Ukrainians, since Viktor Yushchenko's victory in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Lukashenka has made clear his intense dislike for the political changes in Belarus' southern neighbor and the Belarusian police and courts have been happy to echo his views.

Lukashenka and the state-monopolized mass media often insinuate that Ukraine, along with Belarus' other neighbors, Poland and Lithuania, are "former friends" whose governments dare to criticize undemocratic practices, suppression of political opposition, and the crackdown on the independent press in Belarus.

But there is another explanation for common Belarusians. Belarus is the victim of envy, Lukashenka told the crowd at an Independence Day rally on 1 July 2005.

"The more successes we have, the more obstacles we have to overcome," he said. "The envy of our former friends and neighbors sometimes boggles the imagination."

Life under conditions of isolation, or self-isolation, has infected Belarusians with a siege mentality. Lukashenka and his propagandists insinuate that enemies and critics surround the "small but proud" country. The government propaganda machine has ranked Ukraine among the chief sources of ill will since the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Although Lukashenka often refers to the close bonds between his country and Ukraine, telling Belarusian university students in 2005 that "the Ukrainians are our people" and that "however hard someone might try to turn them away from the Belarusians, this will not succeed," his speeches and deeds more often seem hostile to pro-democratic trends in the neighboring country.

In April, the second meeting of the so-called Assembly of the Slavic Peoples of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine was held in Minsk on his initiative. The 500 or so invited guests, including members of the Ukrainian parliament, adopted a declaration condemning the West for interference in the internal affairs of the three nations. "The mutual attraction of our nations is stronger than the persistent attempts of forces that are seeking to engender mistrust among the brother Slavs," Anatol Rubinau, first deputy head of Belarus' presidential administration, said at the meeting.

The Belarusian leader's message to the gathering spoke of a strong popular demand for such a Slavic-centered initiative.

This kind of high-sounding pan-Slavic oratory is countered by a joke going around in Belarus: "All of us, Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians, want to live together in one big, rich country: Canada."

SUCCESSFUL PROPAGANDA

The government-controlled media paint gloomy pictures of recent events in Ukraine, Poland, and Georgia against the background of triumphant reports on new achievements and improvements in Belarus. The implication is clear: Belarusians should feel happy that the Lukashenka government has managed to avert any "color revolutions" like those that swept Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, and preserve stability and proper order in their country.

"Everything the state media says of the economic situation in Ukraine is to the effect: 'They all will soon die of hunger if not of cold,' " said Tatsyana Zyalko, a civil society activist of Ukrainian origin.

"Belarusian state media reporting of Ukraine holds up a false mirror to reality," prominent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said. "Propagandists in the government-controlled media outlets do not hide their ghoulish joy over recent political developments in Ukraine, talking about a collapse of the 'orange project,' the West's defeat, and the failure of the idea of 'color revolutions.' "

In the months before Lukashenka's re-election in March, state media massively highlighted statements by Lukashenka and top brass of the KGB security agency that certain U.S.-funded forces were conspiring to unseat the Belarusian president through an "exported" revolution and training young Belarusian nationalists on their territory to create disturbances in the country. "Since there is no basis for a revolution [in Belarus] : these 'knots' are being formed in Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and, among others, Russia," Lukashenka said in an interview in July 2005. Four "paid columns" were being formed in these countries in addition to the fifth column in Belarus, he claimed. "We have information that drills to practice staging color revolutions are being conducted on the territory of the neighboring Ukraine and Baltic states," said KGB deputy chief Viktar Vyahera in September 2005, adding that "these events are held outside the country, but Belarusian youths are invited to them."

Lukashenka's victory in the March presidential poll brought the defeated opposition on to the streets of Minsk to protest alleged election fraud, inspiring a report on state Belarusian Television that the Lithuanian embassy had coordinated "riots" in Minsk and that opposition leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich had been given instructions personally by EU foreign policy chief Solana and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis. "Among the detained organizers of riots were many citizens of Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. The embassies of these countries actively tried to have them released, which prompts the conclusion that all street riots occurred on authorization from those states and their diplomatic missions," the report said.

These attempts to blacken Ukraine had an effect. Surveys coordinated by a liberal research organization, the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies, showed a decline in the proportion of Belarusians who ranked Ukraine among the five friendliest nations, from 34 percent in September 2005 to 25 percent in April. The share of those who named Ukraine among the five most hostile nations grew from 10 to 13.5 percent.

Nonetheless, the pollsters reported, Belarusians' attitudes to people of other nations typically remain quite steady and resistant to manipulation. The surveys found that for the Belarusians, whom Lukashenka once called the most international people in the world, Russians remain the closest nation, followed by Ukrainians and Poles.

BELARUSIAN HOSPITALITY

In February, some 40 days before the presidential election, a new version of the law regulating the entry of foreigners into Belarus came into effect to, as officials said, keep "undesirables" out.

With Lukashenka safely returned to office, Ukrainian youths felt what that meant on their own backs. Ukrainians were grabbed by police, jailed, expelled from Belarus, and banned from entering the country for five to 10 years for merely being near opposition candidate Milinkevich's campaign rallies and post-election opposition protests.

"There was a real hunt for Ukrainians," Zyalko recalls. "I had to warn them against speaking Ukrainian on the street. When I asked a police officer why they had arrested a Ukrainian boy, he said, 'Well, he is Ukrainian, he held up a [Ukrainian] flag. He may be a spy.' "

Svyatlana Stankevich, who was rounded up together with some 330 other people during the 24 March predawn swoop on the protesters' tent camp in Minsk, recalls that she witnessed a 17-year-old boy from Donetsk beaten at the detention center by a police officer who roared at him, "What the hell do you want here, you Ukrainian pig?"

BROTHERLY RELATIONS

The Minsk regime likely was not impressed by the new Ukrainian government's stated foreign-policy goal of supporting democracy worldwide, including in Belarus and Cuba. There is no doubt that the Orange Revolution - which "bears no relation to either the Ukrainian people or Ukraine," according to Lukashenka - encouraged opposition forces in Belarus. More than 100 Belarusians were among the orange-clad demonstrators on Kyiv's Independence Square in November and December 2004, according to Stanislau Husak of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front party, who spent a month in the tent camp on the square. Prominent Belarusian rock bands N.R.M. and Krambambulya played concerts on the square.

Speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg in January 2005, Yushchenko said he had been delighted to see the banned Belarusian white-red-white flags waving alongside Ukrainian flags on the square, and he promised to do everything possible to contribute to democratic change in Belarus.

Whatever plans he may have had to promote democracy in Belarus, Yushchenko soon found himself mired in domestic disputes with his revolutionary partners and the resurgent opposition led by defeated presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

"Unfortunately, our cooperation plans have not been fulfilled as we expected, as the Ukrainians have been too busy with themselves all this time," Husak, a member of Belarus' Ukrainian community, said. "Although," he added, "we stay in constant contact with our Ukrainian partners."

Minsk apparently expected relations with Ukraine to warm following Yanukovych's appointment as prime minister last summer, but he instead held to the agreement with Yushchenko that cleared his way to the premiership and spoke of the need to pursue internal reforms and seek European Union and NATO membership. Even so, and despite that no high-ranking Ukrainian politician has visited Belarus since Yanukovych's appointment, the Belarusian authorities seem to have toned down the negative reporting and propaganda aimed at Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian youth organizations, such as Student Brotherhood, the National Alliance, and the Pora movement, have maintained close ties with Belarusian opposition youth groups and arranged for Belarusians to study at Ukrainian universities, one of which, Kyiv Slavonic University, has said it is ready to accept 200 Belarusian students, according to Zyalko.

The Committee to Support Political Victims, set up by Milinkevich's team to provide assistance to people who suffered from political persecution during and after the presidential election, reported in August that 77 students would start their studies in Ukraine this academic year.

"Of course, we are trying to do more to improve cooperation with Belarus' civil society and not to limit this to choral-singing parties with members of the local Ukrainian community," said Olesya Yurchenko, counselor of the Ukrainian embassy in Minsk.

According to the most recent census, in 1999, 237,000 ethnic Ukrainians lived in Belarus, with 50,000 of them in Minsk and the surrounding region. Making up 2.4 percent of the population, Ukrainians are the third largest minority after Russians, with 11.4 percent, and Poles, with 3.9 percent.

SPREADING THE WORD

Although no high-ranking Ukrainian politician has visited Belarus for months, cultural contacts at the official level continue. Last spring Minsk and Kyiv agreed to open a Ukrainian information and cultural center in Belarus and a similar Belarusian center in Ukraine. The Ukrainian center is due to open in Minsk by the end of this year, with a branch at the Ukrainian consulate in Brest.

Unofficial cultural contacts also continue, and just as at the level of political and youth groups, cultural travelers often hold views not shared by official Minsk.

In December, a group of prominent Belarusian writers, including Pashkevich, Zakonnikau, Ryhor Baradulin, Vladimir Neklyayev (head of Belarusian PEN), and Henadz Buraukin visited Kyiv, where they and counterparts from the Ukrainian National Union of Writers announced plans to establish an international, nonpartisan writers' association. The association, called Word Without Borders, would include writers from Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Two of the Belarusian delegation, Pashkevich and Buraukin, are prominent members of the Union of Belarusian Writers, a strong proponent of Belarusian language and literature since its founding in 1934, now seen as friendly to the opposition. Government-controlled media outlets have branded it as politicized and nationalistic. In 2001 Lukashenka stripped it of government support, and in late 2005 authorities set up a loyal Union of Writers of Belarus, which is led by a close Lukashenka associate, the parliamentarian and crime writer Mikalay Charhinets.

In September, Lukashenka directed that public funds be allocated to finance the new union. This kind of financial support from the budget makes literature "a state business," commented the new union's deputy chairman, Anatol Aurutsin. But Buraukin, a prominent poet, said he was certain that no reputable Belarusian writer would join an organization that had nothing to do with supporting literary talent.

"Instead of publishing books by gifted writers, the government will spend public funds on worthless things," he said.

Source:

http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=193&NrSection=3&NrArticle=17847