Maryna Adamovich: The statements made by Europeans bring no optimism

European politicians continue to insist on release of Belarusan political prisoners; however, it reminds rather of some ritual invocation that the official Minsk persistently ignores.

Gunnar Wiegand, the European External Action Service`s director for Russia, the Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Regional Cooperation and the OSCE, is having a two-day working visit to Minsk starting from Tuesday, September 24. When talking with Belarusan journalists he recalled one more time that to become fully-fledged in the Dialogue of European Modernization and normalize Belarus-EU relations, dialogue and cooperation “political prisoners need to be released and acquitted”.

“I have no optimism in regard to this statement”, said Maryna Adamovich, the wife of former presidential candidate and current political prisoner Mikola Statkevich in the interview with the EuroBelarus Information Service.

According to her, recently different groups and some politicians interested in normalization of Belarus-EU relations are too active, regardless of the political prisoners issue in our Belarus: “I’m very happy that the EU, despite any political and economic difficulties continues to insist on release of Belarusan political prisoners; however, sometimes it reminds me of some ritual invocation”.

It is clear that rather intensive negotiations aimed at normalization of Belarus-Europe relations are going on now between Minsk and Brussels. And according to Maryna Adamovich, we can observe this tendency since summer 2012; still, so far it hasn’t resulted in any positive decisions on the part of Belarusan authorities: “Those political prisoners, who are at large now, were released after their full sentence was served. And even now they are kept under surveillance. Can we can it freedom or victory?”

The wife of Mikola Statkevich emphasizes that she is neither a politician, nor an analyst, and her expectations are mostly personal. But it is for these reasons that her positions can be called the most sensible, without politicking and extensive overtures with the Belarusan authorities: “I wouldn’t like to give my assessment of the work of the Belarusan opposition, though I do understand that the efficiency of any activity is assessed depending on the achievement of certain intermediate and final goals. If we talk about the mobilization of assets and resources, then any form of activity is better than inactivity, which means that there is sense in today’s work of the opposition. But if we talk about some final results, none of the coalitions which were formed recently has answered the main question: what is the goal of all their activity? And how is this goal going to be achieved? I’ve seen no concrete answer to this question: nor about the “people’s referendum”, nor about the “honest and fair elections”. It is difficult for me to discuss declarative statements on the formation of some coalitions and unions, as I see no clear strategy in either case”.