tobiasonbelarus

Dmitriy Pavlichenko enters the election campaign

2006-03-05T05:59:00.000-08:00

I have been away this week, but it was still hard to miss one event. On Thursday, 2 March, the presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin uninvitedly tried to get into the All-Belarusian Congress, a huge propaganda event now staged for the third time by Lukashenko during his time as president. Instead of simply denying Kozulin entry and quietly but firmly showing him to the door, the following happened.

1. Kozulin gets beaten up by no one less than Dmitriy Pavlichenko, a police special forces colonel mostly known as the head of Lukashenko's death squad, and is taken to a police station.

2. Pavlichenko makes a statement about the beating to the press, saying that Kozulin had offended him and that he had therefore held a "man-to-man talk" with him.

3. In the police station, Kozulin smashes a portrait of Lukashenko.

4. Outside the police station, police apprehends some thirty of Kozulin's supporters and unprovocedly opens fire on a car with four of them inside.

5. All this gives Kozulin the best PR effect any alternative candidate to Lukashenko could ever imagine, both within and outside Belarus.

I have been negative about Kozulin ever since he showed up on the opposition scene a year ago, unexpectedly given the leadership of Belarus' largest social democratic party (of which he had never been a member) by internal intrigue-makers. Available information, as well as his collection of more well-known supporters, has shown that he relies on support from Moscow. The main effect of his political existence, so far, has been to sap strength from the united part of the opposition which stands behind Aleksandr Milinkevich in the so-called elections that will take place 19 March. In short, I do not think that Kozulin is meant to play a constructive role.

It seems that the common interpretation of this weeks events have been that the president and his surrounding are nervous, even loosing their mental balance. Strange statements by Lukashenko at the All-Belarusian Congress, about the 16th century publisher Francis Skaryna having lived in Saint Petersburg (which was founded only in the 18th century!), has strengthened this impression. Lukashenko is, however, known to use very skilled so-called political technologists and, as I wrote the other week, recently the Kremlin's top manipulator Gleb Pavlovskiy visited Minsk. It would certainly be irresponsible of any observer to take all events of this election campaign at face value.

The question that needs to be asked is whether the beating was deliberately staged to boast Kozulins popularity, partly to sap strength from Milinkevich and partly to establish a controllable opposition politician on the playing field for the longer run.

Could Kozulin have been taking a beating voluntarily? I think so. Since a strange incident at the candidate registration ceremony the other week, which also involved physical confrontation, Kozulin has been making a point of his training as a naval commando. So it seems reasonable to assume that he would be willing to endure this, if the gains were big enough.

Could Pavlichenko have beaten a presidential candidate, and then have made a statement about it to the press, without instructions from above? I find this hard to believe.

***

It is a bit hard to figure out where Kozulin is in the first picture below, but the man in green should be Pavlichenko. The second picture shows the man who opened fire on a car with Kozulin's supporters in it. In the evening of the same day, the released Kozulin (third picture) showed up at a street gathering organised for Milinkevich.

Never had she seen Belarusians so afraid

2006-02-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

The official election campaign, for lack of better words, has begun. This week saw the first of two half-hour long televised addresses allowed each candidate. Interestingly, Moscow's pseudo-democratic puppet Aleksandr Kozulin stood out as the most radical opponent of Lukashenko, tearing a newspaper with the president's picture in it. The united opposition's Aleksandr Milinkevich stayed his thoughtful self.

Meanwhile, throughout the country house searches were conducted in opposition activist's homes, some of the legally allowed campaign materials for Milinkevich was confiscated by police, and four people were arrested by the KGB. They are now being held under suspicion for breaking the second part of article 193 of the Belarusian Criminal Code. Under this legislation, which is part of the politically repressive amendments introduced at the end of last year, they can face up to two years of imprisonment for participating in non-registered organisations. The organisations in question are Partnership, which conducted election monitoring during the parliamentary elections and referendum of 2004, and the Movement of Andrey Klimov, named after its imprisoned leader.

Yesterday, I received a phone call from Gunnel Arbin, a Swedish journalist who travelled to Belarus several times during the 1990s, and had just returned from her first visit in six years. She was under strong impression from what she had seen. Gunnel had met the lawyer of the detained activists, Vera Stremkovskaya, who told her how their parents wanted her to step away from the case because they are afraid that she is considered to controversial. This may not be necessary, however, because the KGB has now illegally denied Stremkovskaya to meet with her clients anyway.

But Gunnel had also found that the legal amendments passed last year are affecting not only the political sphere. In the ambition of writing an article on the social thematic, she had contacted the Belarusian branch of the Red Cross, which she wanted to ask about the situation for homeless people in Belarus. The humanitarian workers, however, told her that there are no homeless people in Belarus because the state provides so well for everyone. So instead, she managed to get in touch with a catholic parish, who were actually helping homeless people out. But the Catholics were only willing to tell Gunnel about this on the condition that she would not reveal their names in her article. The reason was another new article of the criminal code, the one about "discrediting" Belarus in foreign media, a crime which can also render imprisonment.

Finally, at the airport on her way home, Gunnel was temporarily detained by the border guards who questioned her and searched her luggage for some 45 minutes before two phone calls from the Swedish honorary consul, Lars Karman, finally got her off the hook and on the plane home.

Election campaign or not, Gunnel's final verdict on this trip to Belarus may be valid for a long time to come. She told me that never before had she seen people there so afraid.

***

PS. The main character of one of my earlier posts, Seppo Isotalo, recently left a brief comment there which you can find if you go back and look at the bottom of the page. Clicking his signature opens his website, containing among other things the old article shown below. The titel reads: "The fixer Seppo - trusts the KGB over the Supreme Commander"

Lenin inspires anti-opposition propaganda

2006-02-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Richard Pipes's The Russian Revolution. It is striking how the accusations directed by today's Belarusian regime (and lately also by the Russian) against its critics, that these are foreign agents paid to destabilise their societies, fits much better as a description of what Lenin actually did almost 90 years ago. Lenin's agenda was truly to destabilise his country, to crush the attempts at the time to give Russia a constitutional framework and replace it with Bolshevik lawlessness. And he did get foreign money, without which his success may not have been possible, from Germany. He also sold out his country's interests in World War I to this foreign power (which was the main reason why Berlin financed him).

Let us compare this historical reality with the current situation in Belarus. Yes, it is not much of a secret that the West does finance opposition forces in the country. But contrary to Lenin's agenda, the aim is to re-establish those legal restraints on raw power that have been abolished by Lukashenko's regime. And although this may be a hypothetical statement, there are probably few strings attached to this. Belarus will not be forced to compromise its national interests, like the Bolsheviks did when they signed the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany.

Unfortunately, though, Western backing of the opposition is not the only aspect here. Part of those who say that they share the agenda supported by the West, feel that they cannot get adequate support from it. So they seek it in Russia instead, and this make them more similar to Lenin in his lack of principle. I have heard well-respected Belarusian democrats say that they see the only hope of bringing about a power shift in striking a deal with Moscow, promising to give away the country's main enterprises. Personally, I think that the best possible product of a Russian-backed regime change would be so-called "directed democracy," which is the strange term with which today's Russia is often described, and which in practice has very little to do with real democracy. So, to the extent that the Belarusian opposition receives support from Moscow, the accusations made by the regime are more or less correct.

The regime, however, is silent about this. Instead, its accusations continue to be directed against the West. This week, the government newspaper Respublika repeated these accusations and also published a list of some thirty Western organisations allegedly backing the Belarusian revolutionaries. Four of the organisations were Swedish, three of them have a rather apolitical agenda and none of them would be likely to demand the sell-out of Belarusian state enterprises or any other compromise with the national interest.

The reasons that Lukashenko conceals the real threat to his country are simple. First, since Russia does not care the least about lack of democracy, there is no public criticism of Lukashenko's domestic policies that can be exploited into a public propaganda conflict. Second, to an unknown extent Russian "support" to the Belarusian opposition is probably co-ordinated with the infiltration efforts carried out by the Belarusian security services. Finally, "directed" democrats are likely seen as less threatening than those truly driven by principle, since the former are by nature more open to strike a deal.

By the way, the little remnants of directed democracy that are still left in Belarus reminded of themselves this week. All four candidates to the presidential elections in March were registered as such by the Central Election Commission, including the opposition representative Aleksandr Milinkevich. Now they have four weeks of highly restricted campaigning before them.

Also this week, the monthly solidarity day took place. This time, Belarusians were asked to take it a step further, not only lighting candles in their homes but joining a manifestation on Minsk's central October Square. About two hundred people showed up, twenty of which were arrested by police. A democratic revolution is still not in the air.

***

PS. On Wednesday the 16th, like last month, two solidarity manifestations for Belarus were held here in Stockholm. One, in the afternoon, involved parliamentarians from almost all the parties represented in parliament. The second, in the evening, was arranged by Belarusian immigrants.

What is Gleb Pavlovskiy doing in Minsk?

2006-02-12T17:59:00.000-08:00

In Moscow, there are currently three people whom I would like to ask about their involvement in Belarusian politics. I rather doubt, however, that any of them would give me straight answers.
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The first one is Valeriy Pavlov, a former general and member of the Belarusian parliament in the early 90s. In the last few years, Pavlov has found a niche for himself as a link between the Belarusian opposition and the Russian establishment. I think his first public appearance in that role was made in 2004 through no less than three interviews by a journalist of Ukrainian citizenry, Podolyak, who was subsequently very hastily deported even though he had a family in Minsk. Pavlov is also supposed to have given the imprisoned opposition politician Michail Marinich the US$ 90,000 which were confiscated when he was arrested at about the same time.

Pavlov seems to be a rough person. A friend of mine told me about an incident some ten years ago in which Pavlov, having arrived in a mid-sized town to settle a political problem, actually used a gun to intimidate a local official. Overall, he does not strike me as a democratic idealist although he poses as one, so it would be interesting to know what his real motivations are and what interests he may be serving in his work against Lukashenko.

The second person is Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, of Russia's Union of Right Forces (SPS), who in later years have often been heard complaining that Lukashenko will not give up Belarus' gas transit company to Russia. Nemtsov and SPS hold long-standing ties to Belarus' United Civil Party (UCP), and since this past fall they claim to be financing the main Belarusian opposition newspaper, Narodnaya Volya. If SPS's agenda is to support the united part of the opposition (including its partners in the UCP) and its presidential candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich, however, it would be interesting to know why Narodnaya Volya is now taking a clear stand for the Kremlin-backed Aleksandr Kozulin. It would also be interesting to know why Nemtsov is now calling for an election boycott in Belarus, thereby in effect undermining Milinkevich's position.

It seems to me that Nemtsov is part of the utterly cynical Russian political landscape, where opposition to the Kremlin is a relative matter, and where few pacts are too unholy to make. So it would be interesting to know what he hopes to achieve by his active interest in Belarusian matters.

Finally, this week Minsk was visited by the notorious Gleb Pavlovskiy, the Kremlin's own favourite "political technologist." Pavlovskiy's Foundation for Effective Politics (FEP) is sort of a hybrid between a Western-style PR agency and the KGB, and is considered the most skilful organisation in planning typically dirty post-Soviet election campaigns. Whether Pavlovskiy visited Minsk only to observe the election campaign, or whether he is actively involved in this campaign, would also be interesting to know.

***

PS. For anyone in Stockholm, I would like to mention that there will be a solidarity manifestation for Belarus at Norrmalmstorg square on Thursday 16 February at 15.30 hrs, like there was one last month.

A wall to the West, penetration from the East

2006-02-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

This week has confirmed two things that I have long believed but not been sure about.

The first one is that I am still forbidden to enter Belarus. It has now been almost two years since I tried to go there last time, in February 2004. After I had attended the by-elections to the local council of the town Belooziorsk a few months earlier, I had found out that a local journalist had been sued for defamation over a discussion at a polling station that I had also taken part in. Since I did not think she had done anything wrong, I sent a written statement to the court and said that I was prepared to come there to give my version of events. Some weeks later, I received an official letter by ordinary mail, telling me to appear as a witness in the proceedings.

I got an invitation and applied for a visa at the Belarusian embassy here in Stockholm. I got the visa, and the next day I spent travelling via Vienna to Minsk. At the international airport, the border guards told me that I was forbidden to enter the Republic of Belarus, changed my return ticket, and forced me to get on the same plane back again.

I never got an explanation. The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked, both in Minsk and with the embassy in Stockholm, but got not response. A subsequent letter from me to the Belarusian ambassador was also ignored.

So ever since then I have not really been sure about my status, but now I am. A week and a half ago I paid the fee of 650 kronor (a bit over 80 USD) and handed in my passport along with a visa application at the embassy. This Thursday I returned there.

"Here is your passport," said the consular officer.

I took it and looked at him for a brief moment but he did not say anything. I opened it to start going through the pages.

"There is no visa in it," he said.

I was not going to get my money back. I was not going to get any explanation of why I had been denied a visa. I was not going to be told whether it would make sense or not to apply again later. Unfortunately, he said.

Well, at least now I know that I have not been missing any opportunities during the last two years. And at least they had the courtesy not to have me going all the way to Minsk's international airport to find out about it.

The second thing that was confirmed to me is that Aleksandr Kozulin, the other allegedly democratic presidential candidate besides Aleksandr Milinkevich, is working for Moscow. I have never believed in Kozulin's democratic credentials, but the mystery to me has been whether he is being run by the Belarusian or the Russian regime. I was inclined to believe the latter, and this week I felt certain about it when his election team was joined by Valeriy Frolov.

Frolov, a former army general and member of parliament, became known as a bold opposition politician a few years ago with the launching of the parliamentary group Respublika. Frolov is one of the most openly pro-Russian opposition politicians, and did not even make a secret of the group's meetings with the Russian security and intelligence services during their trips to Moscow.

As for the up-coming election, both Frolov and another member of Respublika, Sergey Skrebets (who is in jail), first positioned themselves as potential candidates. Recently, Skrebets pulled out and said he supported Kozulin. When Frolov did the same this week, my doubts left me.

I can not help feeling a bit sorry about this. I have met Skrebets, and he seems a good enough person. Frolov is also said to be sympathetic.

Yet they both allow themselves to be used in the games of Belarus' chauvinist neighbour.

Four people are left in Belarus' election process

2006-01-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

The first stage of the Belarusian presidential election is now over. For four weeks, the initiative groups of potential candidates have collected signatures for their support, of which a minimum of 100,000 is required. As was generally expected, four people have submitted more than the required amount.

The first one, of course, is president Lukashenko. A reported 1,905,631 citizens are supposed

How much solidarity is there - there and here?

2006-01-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

This past Monday was the 16th, the monthly day of Belarusian solidarity. I am not sure what to think about this event. Two months ago, after the second solidarity day in November, I was a bit disappointed. All those within Belarus I had spoken with, and all whom they had spoken with, were also a bit disappointed. Even though they themselves had lit a candle in their windows, they had not seen others do the same, and so the mirror that was supposed to show that there were many of them showed instead that they were few.

The initiators of this action, on the other hand, announced that they had monitored it and concluded that at least 300 000 people had taken part. Since Belarus has a population of about ten million, this should mean that one in thirty homes would have had a candle burning in its window. I found this hard to believe. But then, recently, I laid eyes upon the latest report from the independent polling research institute NISEPI, which I usually trust, and which confirmed that 3,3 percent of the population had participated in November's candle-lighting.

So now I am not sure anymore. Perhaps the spirit of solidarity is alive in Belarus, perhaps not. Also, I have little idea of how many people have participated after that, in December and January. Figures are not reported, so I assume there is no monitoring going on any longer.

In Sweden, solidarity day was mentioned in a televised speech by our foreign minister, talking at the annual conference on security policy. She spoke mostly about Africa, about development, and about other issues that do not really have much to do with our own national security, since the Swedish government seems blissfully unaware of any threats to this. But she did mention Belarus, and the fact that a manifestation would take place later the same day on Norrmalmstorg square in central Stockholm, for which I felt somewhat grateful.

A few hours later, I was on the square, microphone in my hand, trying to pronounce my pre-written speech as clear as I could although a bitter cold was starting to get hold of me. As I was about to read out the fifth paragraph I quickly glanced to my left where another member of the government, the minister of development aid, was standing. I wanted her to hear this, because, in the televised speech, her colleague had repeated the credo that Sweden's solidarity with Belarus is best shown by maintaining broad contacts, and by persuading Europe to do the same. Broad contacts, in this context, means working with the country's so called vertical of power.

"...Sweden should also stop co-operating with Lukashenko's state apparatus," I said into the microphone. "Because the dictator's henchmen are everywhere in the administration. On his orders they rig elections, make sure that undesirable people are sacked from their jobs, and generally behave like swine. Lukashenko's bureaucrats are among the worst bribe-takers in Europe, this was shown by the organisation Transparency International in their latest corruption survey. Why should Sweden co-operate with such people? No, ban them from coming here instead, I say..."

The minister was busy talking to someone, and not listening. I doubt she would have been impressed, though. Our social-democratic government seems unaware of any other means than constructive dialogue to handle problems, sometimes leaving no room whatsoever for moral principle. For instance, this weekend a platoon from the Russian 138 mechanised rifle brigade, known to have committed war crimes in Chechnya, is conducting a joint exercise with my old regiment in the north of Sweden as part of a "democracy project."

I do not know if such things happen out of cynicism or naivety. They make me as uncertain about Swedish solidarity that I am about solidarity in Belarus.

PS. The picture above is from Warsaw, where 300 people gathered in a solidarity day manifestation.

Sheyman takes the lead in collecting signatures

2006-01-15T15:52:00.000-08:00

Belarus will hold presidential elections in little over two months, and four weeks of signature collection for candidates are now half-way through. The united opposition candidate, Aleksandr Milinkevich, managed to register an initiative group of some five thousand people who are now collecting signatures for him. A few days ago, they were said to have reached the 100,000 which is the officially required minimum to run. If the election had not been announced earlier than expected, and in such a haste, the opposition could probably have got more people to work for him. This would have been good, since knocking on as many doors as possible is the main opportunity they have to build popular support.

Meanwhile, although Lukashenko's initiative group is not bigger than Milinkevich's by more than a thousand, it has already claimed to have collected 930,000 signatures.

Of course, the regime can make any claim it wants, true or false, without much scrutiny. But there are reports that people are forced to sign en masse in student homes and at work places (from which Milinkevich's collectors are excluded), so the figure may not be that unrealistic. Another fact also bears witness to the seriousness with which Lukashenko looks at this election campaign: the identity of the man he has chosen to head his initiative group.

In the 2001 election, this role was fulfilled by Nikolay Cherginets, a former police general and member of the parliament's upper house. This time, however, the president has brought in the person who many consider his most loyal servant, Viktor Sheyman.

Sheyman, who is a former army officer and veteran from the Afghan war, was in charge of Lukashenko's personal security already during his first election campaign in 1994. At that time, he is supposed to have arranged a fake assault on the candidate, intended to boost his rating, by firing a few rounds at his car. After the election victory, Sheyman was appointed head of the newly formed Security Council. In that capacity, he organised the infamous death squad that assassinated first some thirty crime bosses, and then some of the president's foremost political opponents.

The cover-up of these crimes involved removing Sheyman from the Security Council in 2000, and make him Prosecutor General instead. A year ago he was appointed head of the presidential administration, officially making him the second person in the country. This job, however, he had to abandon in order to lead the president's initiative group, since legal niceties would prohibit him from carrying out both duties at the same time. There are now speculations that he will return to his old post at the Security Council once the election is over.

Sheyman is believed to enjoy the president's trust more than anyone else. There is a story, according to which Lukashenko once asked him if he was really loyal. Silently, Sheyman pulled out a gun and put it to his temple. From the expression in his eyes, the president understood that the trigger would be pulled if he said so.

I have seen Sheyman live once. This happened in 2001, the day after the last presidential election, at Lukashenko's triumphant press conference. Two meters before me, on first row, sat Sheyman together with Cherginets, the president's campaign manager, and Lidiya Yermoshina, the chairwoman of the Central Election Commission. They all smiled at each other and seemed quite happy.

Could Belarus break out of Russia's gas empire?

2006-01-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

After a prolonged conflict with Moscow, including a brief cut-off of Russian gas deliveries, Ukraine will now have to pay about four times more for this gas than it did before. Although Swedish reports have shown some confusion about the settlement that was signed this week, Moscow apparently got what it aimed for and inflicted serious economic injury on Ukraine. Some of our observers have described this as "punishment" because Russia is "angry" with the Orange Revolution that took place a year ago. Personally, I rather think it is a cold-blooded attempt to weaken the Ukrainian leadership prior to the parliamentary elections 26 March. In fact, during an appearance here in Stockholm a few months ago, this scenario was predicted by the odious Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich himself. And not entirely without enthusiasm, I should add.

Whether Russia's schemes will produce the desired result in the elections remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, those who want to see a future democratic Belarus should think about preventing similar threats to that country. Excluding Russia from the G8 seems a natural step, since the country is neither very rich nor democratic, and actually uses the economic power it has to suppress democracy. The EU should stop the building of the new gas pipeline that will take Russian gas directly to Germany through the Baltic Sea, circumventing the existing pipelines through Ukraine and Belarus and thereby increasing Moscow's leverage on those countries. And, frankly, why not turn Russia's tactic upon itself, and cut off gas imports when we are not happy about the Kremlin's political behaviour? There should be legal complications to that, but if the Russians can circumvent these - perhaps we could, too?

Care should also be taken not to support pro-Russian politicians within Belarus, even when they position themselves as opponents of Lukashenko. To the extent that Russia uses its gas weapon in the domestic political struggles of its neighbours, this is meaningful only as long as it has strong local proxies like Yanukovich. Remove such figures from the equation, and Russian aggression will no longer make sense. (My objections to the official visit arranged for this man, that I refer to above, was however at the time met with a total lack of understanding within the Swedish foreign policy establishment.)

Energy dependence on Russia is even greater in Belarus than in Ukraine. And although Lukashenko himself launched a new Concept of Energy Security in August, aiming at using more domestic peat for fuel and building the country's first nuclear power plant by 2015, Russian gas looks set to dominate for decades to come. Since a democratic breakthrough will hopefully happen sooner than that, much will depend on Moscow's calculations of political risks and advantages. In the end, however, the Belarusians' last defense against a Russian gas attack may be their own resolve to live in a democracy.

George Kennan's 1945 is not yet here

2006-01-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last week reading Sketches from a Life, which is a collection of travel diary notes by the American diplomat George Kennan, written in a time span stretching from the 1920s to the 1980s. George Kennan is most widely known for his so called Long Telegram from 1946, where he draws up the United States' strategy (as he would have liked to see it) for the coming Cold War. But my attention was caught by a diary note that he made a bit earlier, in June 1945, during a trip from Moscow to Siberia. In it, Kennan expresses admiration for the people he meets and compassion in face of their hardships.

"But," he writes, "there is no way of helping the Russian people. When a people finds itself in the hands of a ruthless authoritarian regime which will stop at nothing, it finds itself beyond the power of others to help. Gifts to it can be given only to the regime, which promptly uses them as weapons for the strengthening of its own power."

Are Kennan's words about the Soviet Union in 1945 relevant for Belarus in 2006? I have lately found myself thinking along lines similar to those quoted above. What is the effect, for instance, of all the Swedish projects in the social sphere aiming at helping the Belarusians? All those meetings and seminars on prevention of drug abuse among youth, on gender equality, and on combating trafficking in human beings, could they not be said to have strengthened the regime? In their wake local authorities have improved (?) their control of youth, Lukashenko did use the gender issue to semi-legitimise the hand-picking of winners in the last parliamentary elections (a third of them should be women), and the trafficking problem is now being used as an excuse for the government to control which young people may travel abroad.

Yes, Kennan's warning is relevant. But, Lukashenko's Belarus is still not quite Stalin's Soviet Union. As long as there are ways of circumventing the authorities, I think there may just be room for helping the Belarusian people without helping the regime. But this room is quickly shrinking, and I do see that people here in Sweden are reluctant to step into it, maintaining instead a more comfortable philosophy of constructive engagement with the regime.

Kennan continues:

"On the other hand, blows aimed in exasperation at the regime itself are no help to the people it dominates. Such injuries are promptly ducked and passed on to the people, while the regime, breathing sympathetic indignation, strikes one fiery attitude after another as the protector of a noble nation from the vicious envy of a world which refuses to understand."

This very well describes the behaviour and rhetoric of Lukashenko. But, once again, Belarus in 2006 is not quite what the Soviet Union was in 1945. Society is not yet totally cleansed from alternative interpretations of the world, and a large portion of the population (probably a majority) is still open for other ways of development than that which Lukashenko offers them. Left in peace, though, he may just be able to accomplish his ambition of a totally subdued people.

This is why I think it would be untimely to accept George Kennan's 1945 advice of leaving it to the "people – encumbered neither by foreign sentimentality nor foreign antagonism – to work their destiny out in their own peculiar way." Instead, we should do what we can before it is too late.

Happy New Year, Belarus.

Feduta shares the story of a personal mistake

2005-12-25T13:09:00.000-08:00

It is Christmas day and I have withdrawn to a cabin surrounded by a snowy landscape but with few possibilities of following Belarusian events. Instead, I have started reading Lukashenko – a political biography (Lukashenko – politicheskaya biografiya) by the well-known journalist Aleksandr Feduta.

I have been wanting to get hold of his book since it came out this past spring. But first, people in Belarus told me it was in short supply. Then some friends got an extra copy, and wanted to send it to Stockholm by mail, but the local post office refused to touch it. A few months later, someone was kind enough to ask Feduta himself about a copy for me. The message came back that Feduta was angry with me for something bad he thought I had done a couple of years ago. He did not have a spare copy.

Recently, I called Aleksandr Feduta and told him there was no true reason for him to be angry with me. It seemed that he actually believed me. And, as if the invisible Christmas spirit of forgiveness had intervened, his book now finally has found its way to me.

Feduta is well placed to tell the story of Lukashenko’s rise to power in 1994, since he worked in his election staff. This was a mistake that he shared with many others of those who would later become the president’s most prominent critics. Like Viktor Gonchar, whom the regime murdered in 1999, or Anatoliy Lebedko, who now heads the United Civil Party where most of the state apparatus’s defectors seem to end up.

Although Lukashenko’s person received an extremely scandalous treatment the other year in the anonymously authored internet book Nashestvie, Feduta’s more open treatment of some issues feels more credible. One example is the incident when Lukashenko, serving as director of a sovkhos farm, beat up a drunk tractor mechanic. Here, we learn that beating his workers was more or less a habit for Lukashenko.

Quotes from an article written by Lukashenko when he was a member of parliament, published in Narodnaya Gazeta 25 May 1991, also make for interesting reading. It is titled “Dictatorship – the Belarusian version?”, and accuses a proposed government programme for Soviet administrative-style “economic populism” and suppressing “free enterprise” and “free pricing.”

The article continues:

“…And finally: for the enhancement of executive discipline… the council of ministers is granted the right of extraordinary measures – to appoint and remove the heads of ministries, agencies, executive organs, companies and organisations… There is only one conclusion: we are faced with a Belarusian version of dictatorship in economy and politics…”

This critique by Lukashenko against his later presidential self shows rather clearly, along with other examples, that the Belarusian president’s driving force is not ideological conviction but rather a personality disorder. Making this point alone would be worth having Feduta’s book translated into English for.

Merry Christmas, Aleksandr Iosifovich!

***
PS. For those interested in this book, who wants to make it easier for themselves than I did, it can be ordered from here.

Three months left to carry Milinkevich into goal

2005-12-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

This Friday something rather unexpected happened in Belarus. The date for next years presidential elections was set to 19 March, instead of 16 July as had been expected. Sure, there had been rumours for at least a year that the elections may be carried out early, and lately these rumours have intensified. But personally, I was inclined to write them off as speculation or deliberately planted disinformation to confuse the opposition in its strategy. Early elections would show that the regime was not confident about its control of the political situation, and Lukashenko prefers not to appear weak. Still, they have now definitely been set for 19 March, only three months away.

Many people connect this step to Lukashenko's meeting with Russia's president Vladimir Putin the previous day in Sochi. Some say that Moscow needs to get the Belarusian elections over with, so that they can host this summer's G8 summit without too much fuzz about post-Soviet democracy issues. Others suspect that there may be some covert deal involved, like selling the gas transit company Beltransgaz to Moscow or finally going through with establishing the so called union state that the two countries agreed upon six years ago. I am not sure about any of this, but I am fairly certain that Lukashenko would have got Moscow's blessing for staying in power regardless of when he had decided to carry out the elections.

The Belarusian opposition candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich is now trying to maintain a brave face, saying it won't matter when he will defeat Lukashenko. In fact, the date does matter. During the first two months after the united opposition appointed Milinkevich its candidate on 2 October, not much happened on the ground to promote him. It is only in the last couple of weeks that he has seriously started travelling and meeting with people around the country. And I am not aware that much else is going on in terms of promotion. The time left for the opposition to deliver on its promise to knock on two and a half million doors now looks scarce.

There is, however, a more acute deadline. Any candidate now has this coming week to hand in registration documents for initiative groups that will then have the right to collect signatures for him. Considering that at least 100 000 signatures are formally needed, and that the opposition has been talking about collecting a whole million of them in order to make denial of Milinkevich's candidature impossible, one can only hope that teams around the country are standing by to be registered. The head of Milinkevich's staff, Sergey Kalyakin, has said that this is so but it still remains to be seen.

Asked by Radio Liberty's Belarusian service to comment on the announcement of early elections, I said that if Lukashenko is nervous about something it is probably popular sentiment rather than the organisational strength of the opposition. Both are however difficult to judge at this moment, as I am not aware of any comprehensive independent opinion polls conducted since September. The candle-lighting on the opposition's monthly day of solidarity, which also occurred on this Friday, does still not seem to have reached a mass which would encourage people to take a stand for change.

***

PS. Solidarity day was honoured by a small gathering in Stockholm, with twelve Belarusians and immigrants from other post-Soviet countries, plus three Swedish liberals of which I was one. DS.

Gennady Davydko - a real person, or just a role?

2005-12-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I used the cabinet of my friend in the Belarusian parliament, Vladimir Novosyad, as something of a logistical base. I handled my e-mail on the computer that was a gift from the People's Republic of China, and had lunch in the government's dirt-cheap stolovaya. In 2000 Vladimir had been the only opposition member elected into the parliament, and it was an eerie feeling walking the long, silent corridors of the enormous white building behind Lenin's statue on Independence Square.

My friend's cabinet was the only one not displaying the assigned portrait of Lukashenko, who had been placed face-down on the safe. In fact, apart from a print-out of his daughter's picture, there was not much decoration or comfort in there at all, as if Vladimir knew he would not stay very long. In 2004, he was not allowed to run for re-election. There was nothing surprising about this, as these elections totally cleansed the parliament from all opposition. But I have since wondered about one person, Gennady Davydko, the man with which the regime chose to replace Vladimir.

I knew that Davydko had a past as a professional actor and head of the national Yanka Kupala Theatre, supposedly the best ensemble in the country and also a partner in several Swedish-Belarusian theatre co-operation projects. Having seen a play there, The Black Lady from Nesvizh, I felt inclined to agree that this was a good ensemble. Still, I did not expect this Davydko person to do much good in parliament. This past year has proven that I was right.

The first time I noticed Davydko in his new role was a few months after the elections, when he supported an idea to forcibly sterilise asocial elements, and said he was sorry he had not come up with the initiative himself. I usually have no problems with a certain amount of the moral conservatism that one often meets in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, often I sort of appreciate it. But this was too much.

And this week I laid eyes on an interview with Davydko made by one of the regime newspapers. In it, he tells the journalist that he feels "comfortable" being in the parliament, but that he is "disappointed" with his voters and their "ignorance in legal matters." Surely, only a parliamentarian who knows that he does not depend on voters for his re-election could say such a thing. I wonder if those voters ever compare their current representative with Vladimir, who spent much of his energy trying to look after their interests and whom I never heard say anything negative about the people that had elected him.

In any case, Davydko has now done his part to insure himself from Vladimir's return, or from any other similar threat. The legal amendments stipulating prison sentences for much of what the opposition does, presented by Lukashenko the other week, have now been passed by both chambers of parliament almost without even cosmetic resistance. According to Gennady Davydko, these changes will ensure that next years presidential elections are "maximally democratic, maximally tranquil."

PS. Thank you for reading this blog. I would like to take this opportunity to recommend my new personal web

archive

. DS.

Should EU strike Belarus with economic sanctions?

2005-12-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

Economic sanctions do not figure very often in talks on what could be done about the situation in Belarus. So, the other day I stirred up a real discussion by presenting this as an option for the European Union. This happened in Tallinn, where I had somewhat unexpectedly found myself in a conference panel along with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's rapporteur on Belarus, The Economist's Central Europe correspondent, and the vice chairman of the Estonian parliament's foreign affairs committee. None of them seemed to think that my idea was very bright. Frankly, I was not too sure myself either. Conventional wisdom has it that economic sanctions are ineffective or even counter-productive. Besides, they hurt ordinary and innocent people. And still I cannot get this idea off my mind.

It has always been said that the EU lacks leverage on Belarus, since there is so little economic exchange between us. But this is no longer true. In the last couple of years, the stream of goods in our direction has quickly multiplied. Over 40 percent of Belarusian exports now go into the EU. To a large extent this seems to be a result of efforts by the country's diplomatic missions abroad. Lukashenko, eager to lessen Russian dominance, has made trade diversification a top priority. He is probably counting on the EU, usually avoiding any hard measures, not to make serious use of its new leverage.

I think he is right. But still, the question begs to be asked. Could economic sanctions further a democratic breakthrough in Belarus?
-

The general view at the conference in Tallinn seemed to be that government propaganda would turn sanctions into an advantage for Lukashenko. They would confirm his picture of a Belarus subject to Western aggression, and increase his support among the population. Since the channels for distributing alternative information are so small in Belarus, countering this picture would not be possible.
-

Personally, I am not convinced by this line of reasoning. In terms of public opinion, the Belarusian population is divided into three large segments. One segment really dislikes Lukashenko. Another segment really likes him. Neither of them is likely to change its mind, regardless of whether we sanction Belarus or not. A more interesting question, therefore, is how the third and middle segment would react. These people are usually referred to as "the swamp" in Belarusian political discourse. Their allegiance to ideological values and political forces, including Lukashenko, easily shifts. They do, however, seem to constantly be in favour of their own perceived material interest. (Which of course is quite normal.)
-

Faced with economic sanctions, it is not obvious to me that this segment would put a bold stand against Western aggression above its own material well-being. Actually, even if they would feel that those sanctions were unfair and wrongful, my guess is that they would prefer to get rid of Lukashenko. As everyone knows, next year's presidential election offers the best foreseeable opportunity for this to happen. Consequently, striking Belarus with economic sanctions right now could produce maximum effect at minimum cost. A few months of possible economic ordeal and then, hopefully, an end to neo-totalitarianism in Belarus.
-

The EU does not seem to have considered this, though. Instead, a long process caused by Belarus' repression of labour unions will apparently lead to some sort of economic measures to be implemented next autumn. That is, well after the election.

PS. My conference intervention is available in my own archive. DS.

Opposition threatened with serious prison terms

2005-11-27T17:25:00.000-08:00

The Belarusian regime is now seriously worsening the legal environment for organised opposition. The demand that all organisations should be officially registered is old, and the other year a law on the registering of coalitions was also adopted. The larger part of the opposition abides by this legislation, others are not allowed to register and some do not care to try. But in September, the Minister of Justice ordered that any organised activity, including coalitions of separate organisations, must be registered. After that, one could reasonably expect an increase in administrative sanctions against the opposition, including fines, short-term arrests, and closure of organisations entering into non-registered coalitions. This week, however, has hinted that the regime will not be satisfied with administrative sanctions against its opponents.

On Wednesday, Lukashenko submitted a new legislative proposal marked "urgent" to the parliament, and on Friday it was adopted in a first reading. (Legislation is passed in three readings.) The proposal stipulates up to two or three years of imprisonment for, among other things, the following activities:

1. Training of participants for mass disturbances, or financing this.

2. Public calls for seizure of power.

3. Discrediting Belarus.

4. Calls for foreign states or organisations to intervene. (Up to five years of imprisonment if the calls are made through mass media.)

5. Organising or participating in activities of closed organisations.

As for the last point, responsibility can be avoided. All one has to do is to voluntarily abandon the activity and report about this to "the proper state agencies." This apparently aims at making activists defect from whatever organisation the authorities decide to liquidate or temporarily close down. The other parts of the legislation seem to focus more on opposition leaders, and, which is somewhat unusual, on foreign sponsors who dare set foot in Belarus. So far, the latter are only being deported, not imprisoned.

According to KGB chairman Stepan Sukharenko, introducing the package in parliament, "there are plenty of those, in Belarus and elsewhere, who are taking steps to destabilise the political situation in our country… Leaders of opposition politicised formations… are using the tribunes of international forums, the OSCE and the Council of Europe… to spread consciously false information about political processes in Belarus… Emissaries of various foreign non-governmental organisations are arriving, using the money of western intelligence services to organise training seminars on how to carry out a revolution."

The rhetoric is not new, and people have been deprived of their freedom for organising protest actions or defaming the president before. But with this legislation, it seems that the potential for arbitrary imprisonment of regime opponents will grow exponentially. It is my understanding that the opposition is already dragging its feet in preparing for next year's presidential campaign. The prospect of ever more repression is not likely to increase its level of activity.

Have Belarusians already run out of solidarity?

2005-11-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

Exactly five weeks ago, I felt more optimistic about the political future of Belarus than I usually do. That day, 16 October, had been declared a day of solidarity. At eight in the evening, lights were switched off and candles lit in people's homes. It was a new kind of protest action, one that drew many more participants than the usual demonstrations. The initiators of the candle manifestation claimed that at least a hundred thousand people had taken part. Witness accounts supported this claim, and I believe it was true.

Since the manifestation had been a relative success, it was to be repeated on the 16th of every month. That, too, seemed a good idea.

This week, 16 November came and passed. Now the solidarity day web site reported that no less than 300,000 people had taken part in the manifestation. I would consider that figure a cause for tremendous joy, if I believed in it. But I don't.

I have now asked four different people living in Minsk, where the density of lit candles had been the largest in October, about their impressions from 16 November. None of them had seen more than "what may have been one candle in a distant window although I am not sure". This is hardly the intended mirror in which, using the words of journalist and manifestation initiator Irina Khalip, "we will se that there are many of us." Instead, the political disengagement of the Belarusian population has again been demonstrated.

The day of solidarity has received quite a big resonance abroad. Vaclav Havel, Bronislaw Geremek, and a number of other prominent figures have voiced their support. Street gatherings with lit candles took place simultaneously in a number of European cities as well as in some parts of Belarus. Still, the manifestation seems a failure.

Why? One claim I have heard is that informational work has been poor, which, if true, is hardly a new problem for the Belarusian opposition. The anti-Lukashenko youth organisation Zubr says that 1,5 million people have been reached by information about the day of solidarity. I doubt that this is true. Apart from lack of information, however, the apparent drastic fall of participants between October and November begs another explanation. Probably, the relative success of the first manifestation was due to the appeal of something new and hitherto unknown. Reruns are less interesting.

I was also a bit surprised to hear about a possible third factor. Fear. A friend told me about a friend, who at eight o'clock had gone out on the street to look at his own house. As he didn't see any candles in the other apartments, he decided not to light one himself either. The person, who is a market vendor, didn't want to be noticed and risk trouble in his business.

Whatever the true number of participants, and whatever reasons may have caused the apparent decline of this manifestation, there will be a new chance on December 16.

PS. An interview with me (in Swedish) about Belarus can be heard on the web site of a student radio station in Lund. DS.

Nikolay Cherginets - Lukashenko's man of records

2005-11-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

This week an old acquaintance made some noise. Nikolay Cherginets, chairman of the parliament’s upper house Foreign affairs and national security committee, was refused entry to the United States. Supposedly because his previous trip, during last years presidential elections, turned into a scandal when he announced that the US doesn’t conform to international election standards. Now, Cherginets reacted by calling for stricter control over who is let into Belarus. He says visiting politicians neglect to meet with Belarusian parliamentarians, and instead chose “to be fed with lies” by the opposition.

Incidentally, some Swedish parliamentarians I know recently had lunch with a Belarusian colleague while visiting Minsk. It later turned out he was a high-ranking KGB officer, with a service record in Dresden. I rather doubt that any meaningful dialogue will come of that contact. And regarding Cherginets, I happen to be in a position to judge his openness for dialogue myself, since we have met twice.

His biography implies that he is a man with whom one can talk. Cherginets started out as a professional soccer player in the 1950s, then worked at a factory, then joined the police and became a detective. In time he rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, while at the same time writing over 30 crime novels, making him a rather famous author. He holds a postgraduate degree in law, and is a decorated veteran of the Afghan war in the 1980s. Now one of the Belarusian regime’s top political figures, he has actually been included in the Guinness Book of Records for his multiple achievements in life.

Surely, such a person should have a view of his own on things, and the courage to express it? At least that was my thought when I asked to meet him.

Our last discussion, which filled three hours of a summer day in 2003, covered a wide range of matters. He showed me pictures from the 1980s, some of which included the famous national author Vasil Bykau, an old friend of his. Bykau, who had passed away just a month earlier, had taken a clear stand against Lukashenko in the 1990s and had been forced to work abroad in his last years. “Unfortunately,” said Cherginets, “Bykau was naïve and believed what the opposition told him.”

Other topics included political disappearances. Although there is now much factual evidence, implicating Lukashenko’s people in the disappearances of some of his top opponents, the former police detective didn’t have much but philosophical objections. “We currently have 1100 people missing in this country,” he said. “You demand that we should spend all our efforts on finding just a few of them. But that would not be fair!”

I also showed him article 4 of the Belarusian constitution, which forbids establishing an ideology as obligatory for the country’s citizens, and questioned whether the launch of a new state ideology at that time was legal. He shook the question off, saying he was sure Sweden also has a state ideology. Since then, I have heard he is one of the most active figures promoting this phenomenon, which is now turning Belarus from an authoritarian state into a totalitarian one.

“You and I have just had a dialogue,” I concluded as our meeting was coming to an end. “But you did not change my view on a single issue. And I suppose I didn’t change yours either?” He looked numb.

So, if any Western politician planning a trip to Belarus wants to avoid being barred from entering the country by meeting with Cherginets, or other parliamentarians, don’t expect it to be more than a pit stop on the way to more useful encounters. And try to stay clear from professional KGB officers.

Will the Kremlin save Belarus for democracy?

2005-11-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

For as long as I have taken an interest in Belarus, within the opposition there have always been hopes for a Kremlin solution. The idea that Moscow is growing tired with Lukashenko, and is ready to help replace him, now remains as vivid as ever. Its most stubborn proponents are individuals who at some point held a position within the system, but then defected to the opposition. I see two explanations for this. First, these people usually lack organised support within Belarus, so they need to look for this support elsewhere. Second, they are shaped by their nomenclature world, where Moscow has always been the centre of gravity. However, hope for Kremlin support exists also in the better-organised parts of the opposition, and is likely to play a significant role in the build-up for next years presidential elections.

This worries me. If regime change in Belarus is to be followed by a democratic transformation, I think it needs to be based primarily on a broad popular movement, not foreign meddling and palace intrigues. And to the extent that foreign meddling is necessary (which it no doubt is), asking Moscow to democratise Belarus is like asking the wolf to tend to the sheep. After all, Russia has so far consistently supported Lukashenko’s regime, and Putin is not much less of a dictator than he is. (Although the West is not yet ready to say this out loud.)

Still, opposition representatives keep travelling to Moscow, in the hope of finding support or at least understanding for their cause. And some of them, to a very limited extent, do seem to find it. The relation between Belarus’ opposition United Civil Party, led by Anatoly Lebedko, and Russia’s Union of Right Forces, in these matters usually represented by Boris Nemtsov, is perhaps the most striking example. (Although the latter party has cultivated a liberal opposition brand, it clearly retains links into the Kremlin.) Others in Belarus are also drawn into this orbit. Recently, the Union of Right Forces pledged financial support for Narodnaya Volya, the only daily opposition newspaper in Belarus. And at the time of writing, a trip to Moscow by the united opposition’s presidential candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich is impending.

Moscow has its own reasons for maintaining these relations. One probably is to foster a pro-Kremlin opposition, in case Lukashenko’s regime would actually need replacement. But beside that, by grooming the strong personal ambitions of the above-mentioned nomenclature politicians, division within the Belarusian opposition is promoted. And that helps Moscow’s primary interest – to keep Lukashenko in place.

Whatever promises are made and broken in Moscow, I think the democratic forces of Belarus would be wise to remember Serbia in 2000. When toppling the regime in Belgrade, the Serbian opposition also accommodated the dark forces behind it. As a result, they got rid of Milosevic but still live in a Mafia state. The lesson is that even if today’s appeals to Moscow would at some point prove successful, there will be a price to pay.

PS. Today the Belarusian programme of the Swedish radio sent a piece about my newsletter. Those who understand Belarusian can listen to it on their web site. DS.

Seppo Isotalo: Minsk's man in Stockholm

2005-10-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

Seppo Isotalo, a former senior lecturer at Helsinki university, lives here in Stockholm. But I first ran into him in Minsk, in early September 2001, the week before the last presidential elections. He had also attended the parliamentary elections in the previous year. And in October 2004, during the combined referendum and parliamentary elections, Isotalo was once again back in Minsk. At such occasions, Belarusian state television presents him as a representative of Sweden, and he tells the viewers that the elections are being carried out in an exemplary fashion. Last year, he even got to hold a little speech to Lukashenko himself, complimenting the president’s skill not only in staging elections but also as a waltz dancer.

Isotalo’s role in these events is probably best understood in the light of Cold War history. In the 70s and 80s, he spent a total of ten years living in Moscow. After that, he made a bit of a career providing Swedish mass media with information on sensitive topics such as submarine incursions into our territorial waters, Soviet espionage etc. It was not until the winter of 1990-1991 that his bubble burst, when the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces went public on television, saying that Seppo Isotalo was at the centre of a Soviet disinformation campaign. Isotalo filed a defamation law suit against the Supreme Commander, but lost in court. His access to the media was gone.

Up to this day, though, you can see him attending various seminars and gatherings, always providing a distorted view on post-Soviet democracy developments. He maintains regular contact with the Belarusian embassy, and tries to influence the activities of various Swedish political forces. Although he is a member of the Social Democratic Party, he probably made his biggest success a few years ago with the Centre Party, getting them to co-operate with the shady Belarusian parliamentarian Olga Abramova. The latter actually visited Stockholm a few times, trying to convince me and other people how "very democratic" the Belarusian ambassador at the time was.

At home, Seppo Isotalo often works in tandem with Stefan Lindgren, a translator and author of an apologetic biography on Lenin. Lindgren also publishes a newsletter about the countries of the former Soviet Union, which actually seems to be rather popular. Since its sporadic coverage of Belarus is always pro-Lukashenko, last year I asked him where the material comes from. Lindgren revealed that there is an "expert group" on Belarus, but refused to tell me the identity of these "experts". As I myself am unaware of any experts on present-day Belarus in this country at all, let alone with a pro-Lukashenko leaning, I can only assume that they are embassy workers.

(My and Lindgren's e-mail exchange, in Swedish, can still be found on his web site.)

So far, the influence of Isotalo and Lindgren on Belarusian issues in Sweden is, of course, very limited. Partly, I think this is because Belarus has not yet become a hot foreign policy issue as, for instance, the former Yugoslavia or Iraq have been. If it ever does, I would not be surprised if their views would get some more momentum, presented by radical journalists as interestingly alternative.

Meanwhile, they will most likely once again be presented to the Belarusian TV audience during next year's presidential elections.

PS. This past Friday, the analytical web site Nashe Mnenie (Our View) published an interview with me. Anyone who understands Russian can read it

here

. DS.

Why corruption breeds under Lukashenko

2005-10-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

The other year here in Stockholm, I found myself at a dinner table with a prosecutor from the Belarusian town of Pinsk. I didn’t like him much, he reminded me of the snake serving Prince John in the Disney cartoon about Robin Hood. At one point, conversation drifted into the topic of corruption. The prosecutor put on a wily smile, and said it would be a shame of him not to help a good person out now and then. I couldn’t help sensing a mercantile element in his definition of "a good person".

I was reminded of the prosecutor this week, as Transparency International presented its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. This organisation bases its figures on a number of parallel studies conducted in most of the world’s countries, and Belarus has been on their list since 1998. Since then, the country has been going both up and down on the 10-grade index. In the latest report, it scored worse than ever with 2,6. That puts it on the same level as Ukraine, and only slightly better than Russia with 2,4.

Apparently, snaky bureaucrats are busier than ever "helping good people out".

Let's put this in a political perspective. Eleven years ago, in 1994, Lukashenko won a landslide victory in Belarus’ first and last democratic elections. The main reason was his image as a corruption fighter. Somewhat later, he created the State control committee, supervised directly by the president and often considered one of the most powerful structures of the Belarusian state. Beside this committee, corruption is also being fought by the Ministry of internal affairs, the General prosecutor’s office, and the KGB. Up till this day, Lukashenko keeps making a strong political accent on the corruption issue.

And still, Belarus only gets 2,6 on the index. Why?

Explaining this is beyond the scope of Transparency International’s reports. But from my own contacts and observations, although in this matter they are hardly first-hand, I have arrived at the following. Lukashenko is not fighting corruption, he is breeding it. Yes, he does make use of his vast surveillance capacities to find out who is breaking the law. But then he promotes these very people.

The reason is simple. Lukashenko’s philosophy of governance is all about control (that is why I chose to name my book on Belarus Control). And possessing juicy kompromat (a Russian term for compromising materials) on key bureaucrats, being able to send them to prison at any moment on charges that are not fabricated, surely seems an effective way to exert control over the state apparatus. Judging from the stories I get from various corners of Belarus, this mechanism could provide a large part of the explanation for why local authorities so willingly engage not only in election fraud but also in more grave human rights violations.

As for the Pinsk prosecutor, he seemed politically loyal enough.
"I cannot but like the president," he assured. "After all, mister Lukashenko was the one who appointed me."

Candles of solidarity were lit in Minsk

2005-10-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

A new kind of protest action took place in Belarus this night. At eight o'clock, lights were switched off and candles lit in the windows of peoples homes. October 16 had been designated a day of solidarity with the struggle for democracy and freedom in Belarus. The candle-lighting was to provide people a moment to think about the kind of country they would like to live in.

This idea, which was

Sukharenko, a liberation army, and two bombs

2005-10-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

Terrorism is not something you would normally associate with Belarus. But in May this year, KGB chairman Stepan Sukharenko warned that the West was financing military training for people tasked with destabilising the country. And two weeks later, out of the blue, a new organisation calling itself the Belarusian Popular Liberation Army announced its existence by e-mail. Lukashenko should enter into negotiations with the opposition, it said, or the country would be declared a combat zone. It all sounded like nonsense.

At least until last month. On 14 September, a beer can exploded near a bus stop in the city of Vitebsk, injuring two people. On 22 September, another beer can exploded in the same city, this time injuring 31 youngsters, six of them critically. A week later, the Belarusian Popular Liberation Army claimed responsibility. Before that, during this past summer, the mysterious organisation had claimed responsibility for or been associated with a rumour about radiation leakage from Chernobyl, the derailment of a cargo train, and a false bomb threat to a number of administrative buildings and railway installations.

The KGB has been reluctant to acknowledge the existence of this organisation, saying it is just one person sitting abroad sending e-mails. I do not exclude that this is so. But if it is, then who are the terrorists that Sukharenko warned about in May?

I am fairly certain that when the KGB chairman claimed the West was paying for terrorist training, it was a conscious lie. At the same time, I do not doubt the moral preparedness of Lukashenko’s regime to organise fake terrorism (with real victims) in order to justify clinging on to power with extraordinary countermeasures. The Russian security service, FSB, has been accused of a similar scheme with the 1999 house bombings preceding the second Chechen war and Putin’s ascent to power.

The Russians may be part of it this time, too, because there has been an FSB streak to this matter from the beginning. Sukharenko’s initial alarm in May was made to confirm an address the previous day to the State duma by FSB head Nikolay Patrushev, in which he had warned that Western intelligence services were preparing a revolution in Belarus. And last week, an FSB officer visiting Minsk publicly said he thought the explosions in Vitebsk were terrorist actions. (The Belarusian KGB has not acknowledged this.)

Well, to no surprise, this whole matter is rather muddy and will probably stay so. In any case, if the KGB and/or FSB are engaged in a terrorist plot, I suppose they would want it to peak at the right moment. Last month was obviously not it.

A candidate is chosen, but can he run?

2005-10-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today, at a specially convened National Congress of Democratic Forces in Minsk, some 800 delegates from opposition circles around Belarus chose their candidate for the next presidential elections likely to be held in July 2006. With a very slight margin of 8 votes, the honour befell Aleksandr Milinkevich.

Milinkevich is from the western city of Grodno, where he used to head a so-called resource centre for NGO:s until it was shut down by the authorities in 2003 because its printing press was used for the wrong purposes. Although he is not a member of any of the political parties in the opposition, his candidature was launched by the oldest of them, the Belarusian Popular Front. I met Milinkevich four years ago in Oslo, and accidentaly ran into him on the street in Minsk two years later. Although his political experience is limited (he has never been elected for any office) I think his very sympathetic appeal could strike a cord with Belarusian voters.

If they will be presented with the option of electing him, of course.

I seriously doubt that they will. President Lukashenko was kind enough to grant his opponents the possibility of holding their congress in the country, after local authorities had denied a huge number of applications to rent various premises for it. But this excercise in generosity will have its limits. After all, whatever remnants of democratic attributes may still be left in Belarus, such as (fraudulent) elections, (a few minuscule) critical newspapers, etc., this is a dictatorship. And judging by Lukashenko's revival of old totalitarian traits in later years, such as the ideology system now covering all levels of government, education and larger work-places, Belarus is intended to stay a dictatorship.

If, or rather when, Lukashenko decides to stop Milinkevich from trying to take his place, there are plenty of ways to do that. First, the 100 000 signatures needed to officially register Milinkevich's candidature may be found invalid. Second, Milinkevich may be disqualified for breaking campaign rules by, for instance, using western funding or simply using more money than is allowed. (In 2001 the limit was about 14 000 US$, which is not much if you need to reach out to a population of 10 million.) Third, instead of confronting Milinkevich directly, the regime may strike at the parties and NGOs making up his organisational base, possibly adding some of their leaders to the current number of six high-profile political prisoners.

Should Milinkevich unexpectedly turn into a real danger he may also not live to election day, although the Belarusian regime has not felt it necessary to murder political opponents since 1999-2000. (If anyone finds this scenario too speculative, I would like to remind of last year's poisoning of a presidential candidate in neighbouring Ukraine.)

Lukashenko may also be fortunate enough to see the problem taking care of itself, without much effort needed from his side. The opposition has always suffered from internal conflicts, putting effective limitations on its outreach activities. At this point, things do look better than usual. Most of its organisations and prominent figures are pledging to work as a team. There are, however, notable exceptions and always potential for new divisions.

In any event, to effectively launch Milinkevich's bid for the presidency, the opposition, lacking other means of mass communication, now needs to knock on a few million doors. That is a challenge to which its activists have not risen before. Can they do it in the year to come?