Whether Europe understands what it wants from Belarus

What for?

Mr. Zmitser Dashkevich was convicted in November 2006 and sentenced to one and a half years of imprisonment for acting on behalf of a non-registered organization “Malady Front” (Youth Front).

Mr. Artur Finkevich was sentenced to two years of labour camp in June 2006 for drawing graffiti of a political nature and later on, a one-and-a-half-year term in a colony was added for avoiding serving the first term.

Mr. Andrey Klimov, a member of the United Civic Party, was sentenced to two years of imprisonment on 1^st August 2007 for writing and publishing an article in the Internet, where allegedly he was calling upon a violent over through of the government. He was behind the bars from April 2007.

The Chief Editor of the newspaper “Zhoda”, Mr. Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou was serving a three year term in a colony for reprinting in his newspaper controversial caricatures on Prophet Mohammed from the Danish press. The Judge ruled that Mr. Zdvizhkou was “inciting religious hatred”.

The Belarusian authorities were never admitting the existence of political prisoners in the country. They claimed that all of them were condemned for criminal offences. At the same time their release was called by the government as ‘a step towards the West’. In the course of his visit to Vitebsk Oblast on 15 February, the President Lukashenko said, that the decision to release  “so-called political prisoners” was made “based on the Belarusian Constitution”, bearing in mind that “representatives of some Western countries expressed interest in it”. A release of all political prisoners was one of the 12 conditions set up by the EU for Belarus. If the country fulfills all of them, it may rely on international assistance and cooperation with the EU.

Kazulin and Kim are yet to be freed

Up to this moment there are still two prisoners remaining behind the bars which are vewed as being ‘political’. One of them is a Presidential candidate Mr. Aliaksandr Kazulin and the other is an activist of a non registered organization “Initiative”, Mr. Andrey Kim.

Mr. Aliaksandr Kazulin was detained on 25 March 2006. He was sentenced to five and a half years of imprisonment for organization of a protest march, leading to a clash between the protestors and the Militia. The Head of State, in fact, officially acknowledged that he offered Mr. Kazulin a release into the immigration however the latter rejected such proposal. On 23 February 2008, wife of Mr Kazulin, Irina, died of cancer never seeing her husband set free.

Mr. Andrey Kim was detained when the protest action of entrepreneurs was broken up on 21 January. At the moment he is a suspect in a violence against a policemen case.

Matskevich: "Nothing changed on principle"

According to Mr. Uladzimir Matskevich, an expert of the Humanitarian Technologies Agency, the release of the political prisoners in Belarusper se could not witness about the nature of changes of the existing regime in the country.

“Obviously, the mere fact of the people being released is exceptionally positive and significant, however, this is a regime, that frees some political prisoners and continues persecution of other opponents. Or it negotiates openly and cynically, just like in the case of Mr. Kazulin and his wife”, thinks an expert.

The EU MPs understand this as well. The new resolution on Belarus, adopted on 21 February, again calls upon the Belarusian authorities to release the political prisoners. One of the authors of the draft of the resolution, Mr. Bernd Posselt, said in an interview to “Radio Liberty”, “Indeed, we very much welcome the release of political prisoners. However we also know that one step forward is followed by several steps back in Belarus. It is not excluded that next week new people might be arrested or detained. We demand substantial changes of the situation in compliance with the existing international legislation”.

Feduta: “‘12 conditions’ is a silly document”

A Political analyst, Mr Aliaksandr Feduta, believes that the EU is making an obvious mistake by setting up conditions and demands to Belarus. According to him, the authorities “will not tolerate ultimatums”. “The President Lukashenko agreed to a political ‘warm up’ in a ‘voluntarily-obligatory’ manner”, thinks the analyst. “He was forced by circumstances, such as increase of the gas price, changes of the political situation in Russia… The moment when Lukashenko realizes that he gave in too much, he will stop. Now, a point of concern is about what the Western countries are planning to do in response. It is people, not the government that need a real action, for instance, reduction of visa cost. If no reciprocal steps made by Europe, the political warm up would fade away”. Mr. Feduta thinks that it were not the 12 conditions that led to the release of the political prisoners. “‘12 conditions’ is a silly document. It is too vague and not concrete. Almost all demands are blurred and allow for broad interpretations. That is a problem. For the first time the Belarusian authorities did something concrete by setting political prisoners free, and in reply, Europe did such nonsense as distribution of its 12 conditions again once more. In this regard I can only advise the EU politicians to decide what they want in the end!”

 Yahorau: "Europe itself has to understand what it wants from Belarus"

The same opinion was expressed by an expert of the Humanitarian Technologies Agency, Mr. Andrey Yahorau. He interpreted the release of the political prisoners as a “significant move of the Belarusian authorities in favour of the West”. “Both sides fail to communicate in a normal way that is why they are using ‘signs’. Interpretation of these signs depends on imagination of one another”, thinks Mr Yahorau. .That is the main reason why nothing will change in principal in the relations between Belarus and Europe”.

“The EU will interpret moves of Belarus voluntarily. If it wants to cooperate with Belarus beyond politics, it should regard the release of the political prisoners as a step forward. If Europe is seeking for real democratic changes, it should regard it as a liberalization mask on the face of a dictatorship. The main point is that Europe has to understand itself what it wants from Belarus”.

By Andrey Aleksandrov

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