BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

24/04/2009

Belarus Leader Emerges from Isolation, Italy Visit

Long accused of crushing fundamental rights in his ex-Soviet republic, Lukashenko leaves for Rome on Sunday.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko ends more than a decade of isolation by the West this weekend when he visits Italy and meets the Pope in the Vatican.

Long accused of crushing fundamental rights in his ex-Soviet republic, Lukashenko leaves for Rome on Sunday after receiving a series of "green lights", signals that the West was now willing at least to talk to him, if not to embrace him openly.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini says he will meet Lukashenko. The visit's main feature will be an audience with Pope Benedict that the president hopes will help improve chilly relations between the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy and may lead to a meeting between their two leaders in Belarus.

"Meeting the Pope as part of his first visit is clearly a good idea if only for the reason that the president can be certain that there will be no unpleasant surprises," said analyst Alexander Klaskovsky. "Everything will be fitting and according to plan."

Lukashenko's last official visit to a western country, France, dates back to 1995.

Belarus was until last year criticised repeatedly in Washington and Brussels, and Lukashenko was banned from entering the European Union on the ground that he had rigged his re-election in 2006.

The ban was suspended last year when the bloc noted improvements in Belarus's record. Last week, Lukashenko secured an invitation to the EU's May 7 "Eastern Partnership" summit in Prague aimed at providing support for six former Soviet republics and easing energy dependence on Moscow -- though he is unlikely to attend himself.

Lukashenko has championed a post-Soviet merger with Russia since coming to power in 1994, but that project has made little progress and he has tried for the past two years to improve ties with the West after quarrelling with Russia over energy prices.

OPENING DOOR TO LUKASHENKO

Western countries were moved by the release of the last detainees seen as political prisoners, an end to restrictions on the publication of opposition newspapers and an election that proved somewhat freer than previous contests.

"These visits opens Europe's doors to Lukashenko. It is undoubtedly a message for Europeans," said Anatoly Lebedko, a veteran of the disparate liberal and nationalist opposition.

"Europeans now find themselves facing the question of who will be the first to receive Lukashenko, the man described as a dictator not so long ago."

Some Europeans are uneasy about the diplomatic overture. Czech President Vaclav Klaus said he would not shake Lukashenko's hand, to which the Belarussian leader replied he was uncertain whether he was interested in being greeted in that manner.

Lukashenko hopes religious diversity in his country, wedged between Russia and three EU states, will ease mistrust between Catholics and Orthodox rooted in the "Grand Schism" of 1054.

Fourteen percent of Belarus's 10 million residents are Catholics and there is no history of strife between them and majority Orthodox believers. The Vatican's Secretary of State met Lukashenko while on a visit to Minsk last year, and the president invited the Pope to come to Belarus.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul, was prevented from visiting Russia by opposition from the late Orthodox patriarch Alexiy on the ground that Catholics were "poaching" converts.

Alexiy's successor, Kirill, is seen as more liberal and open to contacts with the Vatican. He met Lukashenko, who describes himself as an "Orthodox atheist", in Moscow earlier this month.

"I believe Belarus could put itself forward as a place for just such a meeting and the start of top-level dialogue between the two churches," said Sergei Maskevich, head of the Belarussian parliament's international affairs commission of a possible meeting between pope and patriarch

Source:

http://www.javno.com/en-world/belarus-leader-emerges-from-isolation-italy-visit_253475

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