BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/02/2006

Poland supports democracy in Belarus

The state media in Belarus have been working hard to create an espionage hysteria through antagonizing Belarusian society against Poland and the ethnic Polish community in that country. Belarus, a former Soviet republic squeezed in between Poland, Lithuania and Russia, has what is described as Europe's only authoritarian regime.

Several incidents, like the turning back at the border with Poland of the Union of Poles president Angelika Borys a few days ago, testify to concerted efforts of the authorities in Minsk to fuel mistrust towards democracies such as Poland in an attempt to soften Belarusian society before the upcoming presidential elections. After the change of constitution president Lukashenko has been automatically granted an additional term in office. But the regime went even further in securing its future interests by amending the law to enable effective actions against the pro-democratic opposition. Vera Stramkovska, a Minsk based lawyer of the Center For Human Rights in Belarus is highly alarmed by this.

"The changes to legislation, especially the criminal code, they give a special atmosphere to everyone who would decide to openly present an opinion, which is not the same as the official one. Right now, we've had some experiences when youth had been arrested becuase they showed their expressions about the elections or the campaign with graffitti or gave out papers with information."

What can Poland and other European countries do to make Belarusians aware of their rights in making a free choice? Journalist Andrzej Krajewski had been an international observer during the memorable presidential elections in Ukraine and has now volunteered for a mission in the Belarusian vote.

"First of all, the period before elections, as what we are witnessing in Belarus, is not like in Ukraine last year, because the whole government machine but not the whole media were behind the official candidate of the authorities. Here, there is no independent media at all. And hardly all Belarusians know that there is an independent candidate other than Mr. Lukashenko. So I think the efforts should be to let Belarusians know they really have a choice!"

Andrzej Krajewski adds that another way of keeping pressure on the authorities is to monitor the actual vote on the spot through observers sent by international bodies, such as the OSCE, which have tested methods of documenting and presenting findings of the election process.

The present anti-Polish campaign in Belarusian state controlled media is just one element of the pre-election scheme to discourage Belarusian society from exercising its democratic rights.

Source:

http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=32797&j=2