BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30.10.2005

Belarus' "Para Bellum" Cocked to Fire

Pavel Simonov, AIA Russian section

The dictatorial regime in Belarus for the last weeks boosted its preparations to fight against any attempt to remove it from power. All the means from the old Soviet times are suitable to fight the opposition. The notorious KGB and control over the information for propagandistic war not only inside the country but also over its borders will be used by the Lukashenko's regime. It has also one ally left, which sincerely wishes to he assist this regime to survive...

Basically, using the old Soviet experience there are several directions Lukashenko's regime has to cover for efficient counter-revolutionary activity. The first one is the sphere of information. As the Soviets said the one who rules the information shapes the reality. That is why the authorities organized a huge "informational workshop" for the representatives of the governmental bodies on different levels and the local businessmen. The regime plans to combine their efforts for propagandistic war inside and abroad, but also for collecting intelligence information on the activities of the forces, supporting Belarus democratic opposition. The pretext of bringing together officials and businessmen was "popularizing of the Belarus products abroad" with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Belarus state structures, departments and agencies, spokesmen of which attended the two-day workshop.

But as the oppositional sources in Belarus reported, at the very beginning of the workshop the Foreign Ministry representatives crossed all of the t's, stating that Belarus must have "an aggressive informational policy" and the attending businessmen should assist in that. Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Gerasimenko, who headed the workshop, stated that the Ministry will control the implementation of this policy. The script is simple - the businessmen, working in the neighboring state and in Europe, turn into some kind of non-official representatives of the country, presenting the "good side" of Belarus regime, thus fighting the true awful image of Lukashenko's government. Gerasimenko stated that all of the "Black PR against Belarus and its leader is just a farce", but still the support of the local manufacturers and companies-exporters is needed to oppose it.

Also, often having connections with Belarus diasporas, they will transfer all the information about preparations or support of anti-governmental activities in the country by foreign forces to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which will repay them in certain way. "One point is to make products, to create a favorable investment climate in a region and to reach high results in the social sphere development and the other one is to present these products and to show them to the world," Alexander Gerasimenko noted, pointing that at present foreign representative offices of Belarus function in 46 countries, 20 embassies have own web-sites and the viewership of Belarus-TV Channel grew six times against the first quarter this year. That is why every business should cooperate actively with the Foreign Ministry, which has wide possibilities of distributing information, the Deputy Minister stressed.

This is actually a reviving of the old Soviet method. Or better to say its modernization. In the Soviet times all of the exporting-importing companies and firms were state owned and their employees often conducted spying activity abroad, not only in the sphere of technological espionage but in other branches, including military. They were also used as a channel of bribing foreign officials and businessmen, who could "assist" the Soviet secret services.

Alexander Gerasimenko seems to have a good experience in organizing such a structures. Well? As the Belarus opposition sources note there is no wonder for this man definitely had connection with the Soviet KGB in the past.

Before becoming the Deputy Minister of independent Belarus, he occupied at least three posts during the Soviet rule, which are unattainable without close relations with the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosty of the USSR.Gerasimnko was the lecturer at the Party School of the Belarus Soviet Republic, the first secretary of the regional Communist party committee in one of the areas of Minsk and the second secretary of the Communist party committee of the city of Minsk. The last post even gave him an authority to control certain spheres of the republican KGB branch activity.

But enough about him, and the past, Soviet KGB. The Belarus KGB, the true and proud successor of the Soviet one, came out with another initiative to block any oppositional activity.

The First Deputy head of the KGB Major-General Vasily Dementei presented a draft law on counteracting extremism, which was immediately approved by the Chamber of Representatives of Belarus at the first reading.

Dementei noted that according to the analysis of the current public-political situation shows that a tendency of spreading anti-public manifestations including ones of an extremist nature is observed today in the republic. "Such manifestations can be seen in the activity of several Belarusian political and public organizations as well as of some foreign non-profit agencies and mass media outlets. There are facts of financing Belarusian political departments of extremism views by foreign organizations and of distributing information provocative products, what destabilizes the public-political situation in the republic," Major-General said, official Belta agency quoted.

"The draft law determines the concept "extremism", legal and organizations grounds to counteract this phenomenon and subjects of counteraction - the interior ministry, the State Security Committee and the Public Prosecutor's Office," he added, noting that the provisions of the draft law are similar to the ones in the analogous law of the Russian Federation.

But the most interesting part is that Dementei stated introducing the draft that the secret services of the foreign states are going to destabilize Belarus and will undertake various steps, down to intervention and terrorism. "The facts testify that the main target of aspiration of special services of the foreign states, in particular of the USA is destabilization of political situation in our country. They have clear tactics, up to and including direct intervention. We have seen full mobilization, including the creation of groups which, when required, can engage in activity to overthrow the constitutional order by all means of extremist activity which, in the most extreme case, means terrorism," he added. The KGB official informed that in the neighboring states, in particular Lithuania and Poland, "bases of influence on Belarus", and also points of observation are created. "They try to involve and Ukraine in this, " - he told.

So, apparently the new law would assist in "preventing" the extremism, by "planting" the opposition activists behind bars.

Lets quote the retired KGB officer, lieutenant colonel Valery Kostka: " The bill "On Counteraction to Extremism" adopted by the "chamber of representatives" in the first reading on October 27 puts the opponents of today's Belarusian regime in extremely hard conditions. In fact any their actions could be qualified as violating the new law. I would understand if the law would be adopted in a country where extremism is widespread. Even more severe measures would be needed there. But Belarus is a tolerant country.

That is why I understand that the new law is related to the presidential elections in 2006. The opponents of the regime are discriminated against and put in such severe conditions that a question arises whether they would be able to do any actions at all? Any protest meeting, for instance, against rigged results, could be embraced by this law. All these actions could be interpreted as extremism. Judges and prosecutors would have a juridical base: you have gathered at the square, and it means that you are extremists.

In Belarus, where no extremism exists, these laws seem to be exceptionally unnatural. We do not have any grounds for that; we have a normal peaceful situation. I think that the matter does not concern extremism, but the aim is to make everybody keep quiet," Valery Kostka said to the Radio Svoboda.

Summing up it is important to note that the propagandistic war abroad, collecting intelligence data by the Belarus businessmen abroad and the new "anti-extremist" law, bind together represent a formidable triple weapon of Lukashenko's regime against anybody who will throw down a challenge to it at the upcoming elections.

But this is not all. The Kremlin approved with the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko the candidacy of the new Russian ambassador in Minsk - the former Governor of Altai Region, and currently the aide of the Special Presidential Envoy in Siberian Federal District Alexander Surikov. Being close to the Kremlin, Surikov is a good friend of Lukashenko. As the Russian daily Kommersant notes, he already demonstrated that he can say right things to Belarus President, which are well received by Lukashenko. For instance, while commenting on the re-election of Lukashenko in 2001, the Altai Governor said then: "The republic and its president are on the right path."

But Surikov is not going to be just an ambassador. As Kommersant rightfully noted, he is the "New Governor" of Belarus on behalf of Moscow, sent to observe and to support local native regime, for the Russian authority considers Belarus the last bastion on the way of the wave of Orange and Velvet revolutions. If the Belarus regime falls, Russian is the next :

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=460