The Information Channel Felist.Com -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE February, 10, 2003 http://charter97.org/eng/news/ --------------------------------------------------------- EUROPEAN COURT TO BRING ACTION AGAINST LEADERS SUSPECTED OF ORGANIZING OPPOSITIONISTS ABDUCTIONS Radio Svaboda Svyatlana Zavadskaya says that it was impossible to institute proceedings on the case of disappearances in one of the European courts without consultations with high-ranking European politicians. For three days Svyatlana Zavadskaya had meetings in Brussels with influential deputies of the European parliament. Among them were Elisabeth Schroeder, Jan Wiersma, Bart Staes and other politicians. During the meetings with them the possibilities of hearings of the abductions' cases in the European Parliament were discussed, as well as organizational and financial details of the future legal process over Belarusian leaders possibly involved in abductions. Mrs. Zavadskaya does not doubt that this process is to take place, but for clear reasons she cannot tell where. Families of the missing Belarusian oppositionists had to go to one of the European courts because Belarusian authorities really do not want to investigate these cases. For instance, Svyatlana Zavadskaya was not informed about the place where the body of her abducted husband, though those who allegedly kidnapped him are sentenced already. Zinaida Hanchar and Iryna Krasowskaya, as well as relatives of Yuri Zakharanka, demand to investigate the version of involvement of the leadership of law-enforcing agencies of Belarus in the crimes, in particular, of Prosecutor general Viktar Sheiman. However, the investigators do not want to notice this version. When one of the European courts start hearing of the case of the missing Belarusian oppositionists, suspected Belarusian leaders can be detained in any European country and taken to court by force. The relatives of the missing insist that this procedure was applied to Viktar Sheiman, Yuri Sivakow, Uladzimir Navumaw, Zmitser Pawlichenka and some other persons. --------------------------------------------------------- "UNION STATE" COUNCIL OF MINISTERS' SESSION CAN FAIL Olga Mazaeva, Nezavisimaya Gazeta Today in Moscow the session of the Council of Ministers of the Union state is to take place. This information was confirmed to the NG by the department of information of the Standing committee of the Union state (SCUS), and by press secretary of the Belarusian Prime Minister Yawhan Myaleshka. However, even in the noon of yesterday the possibility of the meeting was questioned. In any case, until 4 p.m. local time the Belarusian government headed by Syarhei Sidorsky was deciding if the delegation is going to Moscow or not. Last Friday at the meeting with State Secretary of the Union State Pavel Borodin Sidorsky asked to inform Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov about the position of the Belarusian leadership. According to Sidorsky, Belarus is to participate in the session only if the Russian side would be ready to discuss key issues of the integration of the two states. Belarusian government's position is as following: the two countries have completed a number of agreements in the framework of the Union state, and they should be followed. Minsk is ready to use Russian ruble since January 2005, but common economical space is to be created first, with equal prices for fuel and energy resources. It means equal prices for gas and electric power, supply of which from Russia virtually cut off now (except contracts for gas supply with independent companies Itera and Transnafta, expiring in the end of this month). --------------------------------------------------------- Speech of Senator John Mc Cain Before the Conference on Democracy in Northeast Europe Riga, Latvia February 6, 2004 "The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom." Wrote the great German philosopher Hegel, when kings ruled Europe and empire-building ordered the world. In our time, freedom's consciousness defeated fascism and destroyed a global empire of tyranny. In today's world, democratic government is the norm and dictators are a dying breed. Saddam Hussein is the latest example of how a strong and malevolent dictator terrorized his countrymen for decades, only to be revealed in a hole in the ground as a weak and pathetic figure commanding neither loyalty nor power, and who will be remembered by his people and by history as a coward. So it has been with so many tyrants it is their fundamental weakness and insecurity that drive them to deny their people's most basic rights, and relegate them to live in a state of fear. So it will be with Alexander Lukashenko, whose tyranny over Belarus cannot last forever, and whose legacy will be political and economic devastation that will take years for you, Belarus' future leaders, to overcome, as you give your people back their country and put a free Belarus on the path to Europe. I am honored to be in the company of heroes who serve and sacrifice under the most trying conditions for the cause of a free, democratic, and sovereign Belarus. I am also pleased to be joined by leaders of the democratic opposition in Ukraine, who bravely struggle for your people's basic rights to freely choose their leaders, and for a country where rights are protected by law. The distinguished company with us here today European foreign ministers, parliamentarians, and senior officials, American and European civic leaders, United States Senators and Representatives, and leading members of the press is a reminder of how many allies you have in the West, and how interested our nations are in helping you meet your people's aspirations for freedom. I'd like to thank our host, the government of Latvia, for bringing us together to talk about the challenges to democracy in wider Europe. In Belarus, the progress of the Five-Plus coalition in unifying the democratic opposition and developing a common platform for democratic change has given new momentum to the struggle for freedom. In the 2001 elections, a single candidate backed by the democratic opposition emerged only fifteen days before voting day. Today, the opposition produced a single list of candidates nearly nine months before the upcoming 2004 election. In preparation for these elections, you, members of the Five-Plus coalition, have brought together independent trade unions, over two hundred NGO's, and a number of prominent leaders to wage a unified campaign for parliament. You have brought together the five largest pro-reform parties, as well as the pro-reform faction of the Belarusian parliament, and agreed to a common platform, a common list of candidates to promote in each electoral district throughout Belarus, and a common campaign strategy. I commend you for the outstanding progress you have made in bringing together Belarus leading democratic forces to give voice to the Belorussian people, and I encourage you to continue your efforts to broaden your coalition for change. History has shown that defeating authoritarian rule requires a broad based opposition that is organized to challenge unjust state power, an I wish you well in continuing the important progress you have made in demonstrating to the Belorussian people that they have a voice in you. Polling by the International Republican Institute proves conclusively that belorussiabs are ready for change, with over 70 percent of the people opposed to Alexander Lukashenko's regime. At the same time, polling shows that popular support for the Five Plus coalition is broad and deepening. We in the West have moral obligation to support your campaign to end Lukashenko's dictatorship. Governments and civic organizations in Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and elsewhere are playing critical role. I believe the Atlantic democracies must provide sustained support and encouragement to the Belorussian opposition to prepare you for the task of governing after Lukashenko. With our European allies, including many who remember what life was like behind the Iron Curtain, we should pursue concerted efforts to help build the institutions of a free Belarus civic organizations, independent media, strong political parties, and other pillars of democratic society to create political space not under the regime's control. We should not seek and accommodation with the tyrant. The maturity of civil society, the democratic legitimacy enjoyed by opposition parties, and the success of the Five-Plus coalition make Belarus ripe for change. The American government, our European allies, and civic activists from free Europe can help level the political playing field providing resources for you to function and organize, supporting free media that would otherwise not exist, and adding moral force to your campaign for democratic change, for an end to repression and fear, and for national independence and pride as part of a free and secure Europe. The international community should further isolate Belarus and encourage a new approach to Minsk in Moscow, where President Putin's creeping coup against democratic opposition and media freedom is all the more reason for the West to encourage democratic change in Belarus, so that Lukashenko's automatic rule does not tempt Russia along the same dangerous path. Id like to say to our Ukrainian friends that your people's freedom is as important to the West as that of your Belorussian neighbors. In Ukraine, the United States and Europe should work assertively for free and fair elections this fall. We should pledge at NATO's Istanbul summit that Ukraine will be welcomed into Euro-Atlantic institutions as soon as it meets basic standards of democracy. Ukraine may be one election away from a new democratic, pro-western orientation that would be consequential for your people as it would be for the wider transatlantic community. But neither the Ukrainian people nor its Atlantic allies can accept the manipulation of the Ukrainian constitution to extend one man's term in office, or to change the terms by which elections are held on the eve of the presidential campaign. As the Council of Europe has stated, such behavior is inconsistent with the democratic values of the West and will exclude Ukraine from the company of Western democracies. It is because we in the United States and Europe want Ukraine to succeed, and want to deepen our partnership, that we must be rigorous in demanding that free and fair elections are held this October, without judicial, constitutional, or political manipulation, and that their results are honored. We look forward to welcoming a democratic Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic community and to deepening our friendship with the people of your great nation. Given the scale of Alexander Lukashenko's tyranny, our Belorussian friends face a greater challenge. The leaders of the Belorussian opposition who are participating in this conference stand as proof that their people value liberty no less than others. Your campaign to end tyranny of fear that rules your nation inspires all of us whose values are not tested every day, as yours are, and who pay no great price for our beliefs, as you do. You are patriots whose love of your country will change history. We stand with you. Lukashenko's petty tyranny, his frail mastery in a dictatorship of fear, is no match for our commitment to freedom, to your nation's right to choose its destiny freely through its people's will. Alexander Lukashenko is the last man standing on the deck of a ship of soviet ideas that has been sinking in the ocean of history since brave men and women empowered by external pressure brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lukashenko's rule is an offense to the values whose victory was secured almost everywhere else in Europe with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. As we did with the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe's democracies must ally ourselves with you, the dictatorship's democratic opposition, and provide moral leadership backed by political will to liberate the Belorussian people from the rule of Europe's last tyrant. The United States and Europe should make clear to Moscow that support for autocracy next door will exclude Russia from company of Western democracies, and make supporting democratic change in Belarus a condition for better relations between Russia and the West. Europe's last dictatorship cannot long survive the democratic revolution that swept the world over the last 15 years, and whose waves of change are already lapping at the shores of tyranny's redoubt in Minsk. The history of the consciousness of freedom should give all of us great hope for the coming democratic transformation of Belarus and Ukraine, and with it the hopes and dreams of millions of your citizens for a new day. It is coming, and we in the West will stand by you until it does. --------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE February, 10, 2003 http://charter97.org/eng/news/ -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: http://felist.com/member/unsub?grp=media.charter97&email= http://felist.com/ mailto:ask@felist.com