Aleksandr Lukashenko will take care of Belarus Image

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has met with U.K. public relations guru Timothy Bell, who served as a consultant to Margaret Thatcher and Boris Berezovsky. Lord Bell came to Belarus on a ‘private business visit’. He stayed in Minsk for a day, on 13 March, and only met with Aleksandr Lukashenko.

They had a lengthy conversation behind closed doors.

“I believe it would be a pleasure for you to work in our country with the ‘persecuted’ authorities”, said the President. “We have to convince you that Belarus is a European country… And we are prepared to share any information with you and to show any place of your interest”.

It turns out, they have reached an agreement and Lord Bell (or his experts) will be working in Belarus. Why at this particular moment? Bearing in mind that the President admitted that formerly he “didn’t pay special attention to the issues “Chime Communication” (the Public Relations Company of which Lord Bell is the Chairman) was dealing with”.

The company is famous among consulting and PR agencies. According to Lord Bell, it “works in many countries, building up their companies images”.

“Recent developments in the world have proved that without your skills it is impossible to present a country in the rest of the world”, said President Lukashenko.

It seems that the authorities are not satisfied with the image of our country abroad and Lord Bell agreed with this, “I have reviewed many internet resources with information about your country and found many hypocritical and ambiguous comments. There is a lot to do there to improve the situation… Belarus is a calm and peaceful country. It plays the unique role of a 'gateway' in both the geopolitical and geostrategic spheres.

Details

Who is Lord Bell?

Timothy Bell served as a PR-consultant to former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher during her election campaigns. He advised her how to communicate with journalists and even on what to wear.
Currently Lord Bell is a member of the U.K. parliament's House of Lords and Chairman of “Chime Communications” PLC.

Clients of his company include “Walt Disney”, “McDonald’s”, “Rolls Royce”, “Rolex” and even Boris Berezovsky. Lord Bell’s company was responsible for much of the news management in the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko. A famous photo of Mr Litvinenko dying in the hospital was also released by this company.

Interview

“If a country wishes to improve its reputation, one has to understand the basic nature of the transformation: what has to be improved in relation to what”

Q: “What does the government of a country need to do to create a positive image?”

A: “I prefer not to use the word “image”, I am concerned with “reputations”.  If a country wishes to improve its reputation, one has to understand the basic nature of the transformation: what has to be improved in relation to what.

Usually I start with an analysis of the current situation; where we stand and what we would like to achieve. This establishes what reputation a country would like to have in another country or in a wider region, whether that be a country with a pro-democratic government or a dictatorship…

Further I assess the current reputation of the country. There are three components there: what you do, what you say you do and what others say about you. I ask the country requesting my services what kind of reputation it would like to project and what it would like to achieve in 5 or 10 years time. As a rule, governments hiring professionals to improve the reputation of their countries set short-term limits. One has to be a statesman to think about the reputation of the country after one has left office".

(Interview with “Profil” magazine, 9 April 2007)

By Olga Shestakova, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”