Belarusian authorities chose the most cynical and blatant way to urge the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to give the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus (the legislative body) a special guest status. The normal, civilized way a serious partner takes is to comply with standards and norms of PACE: to abolish capital punishment, to pass election legislation that ensures holding free and fair elections, to guarantee human rights and freedoms, freedom of expression. expand the powers of the parliament and to stop persecuting people for their political views. But the authorities of Belarus headed by A. Lukashenko decided to take another way. They believe that Europe is just too overwhelmed with its own problems to pay close attention to those of Belarus. EU enlargement, transatlantic relations, Iraq and North Korea, Middle East and Iran – who would draw attention to “minor” transgressions of Belarusian inexperienced young authoritarian leader? Belarusian authorities believe that PACE is too tired of dealing with Belarus. It is indifferent to its problems and it does not have any solution to them. Hence it seems to official Minsk that PACE would find it the easiest to get Belarus in counting on the process rather than on the result. As it often happens the easy solution is far from being the best.  

In September trade union leader Alexander Yaroshuk was put in prison for 10 days for daring to express his position on the quality of the judicial system in the country and on persecution of workers’ organizations in Belarus in an independent paper. On September 26, 2003 two German trainers came to Belarus to take part in the seminar “Participation of young people in public processes. Exchange of experience between Germany and Belarus”. Stefan Kammerlingen was not let in the country though he had a visa. Earlier in summer his colleague, a social democratic party activist Jan Bush (Germany) was deported from Belarus. He also took part in the program of training young people. On September 24, Oleg Volchek, a lawyer of a human rights organization was beaten in the center of Minsk in broad daylight. Police were too reluctant to react and investigate the crime. The only Belarusian language Lyceum in Minsk has been closed down by the authorities. Thus high school students have been deprived of their constitutional right to get education in their native language. At present they study in the open air protesting against the continuous campaign of discrimination of the national culture and the language. Activists of youth organizations and political parties are detained and put in prison for 10 – 15 days for taking part in demonstrations no matter what slogans are. During the last 6 months a few non-government organizations that were active in various spheres of public life were closed down by the authorities: the women’s organization “Women’s Response”, the youth organization “Christian Democratic Union”, the regional resource centers “Ratusha” (Grodno), “Civil Initiatives” (Gomel) and the similar organization in Brest. These NGOs provided assistance to smaller grass root organizations on the local level. Independent newspapers “Salidarnast”, “Pahonya”, “Rabochiy”, “Naviny”, “Nasha Svaboda”, “Predprinimatelskaya gazeta”, “Svobodnyje novosti”, “Gomelskaya Dumka”, “Mestnoye Vremia”, “Ekho” and many others are no longer on the Belarusian media market due to either direct involvement of the authorities or their economic discrimination and unequal condition for functioning. The major Belarusian daily “BDG” was also under assault. On September 19, the Belarusian Association of Journalists held action “The day of closed down papers” under the slogans “Crucified freedom of expression” and “20 independent newspapers disappeared. Where can we learn the truth from?”. To add to this sad list of events we should note that 1) no progress has been made on abolishment of capital punishment or at least putting the moratorium on it; 2) no progress has been made and no good will has been shown to investigate the cases of missing people in Belarus (Y. Zakharenko, V. Gonchar, A. Krasovski, D. Zavadski); 3) law on political parties has been amended. Now it is even easier for the authorities to close down any political party (for example for one case of violation of the law on mass walkouts and demonstrations); 4) all attempts of the democratic political parties, NGOs and international community to open a dialogue with the authorities on amending the Election Code fell flat. Moreover the Central Election Committee of Belarus’ officials and A. Lukashenko repeatedly state that the Belarusian election legislation meets international standards and there is no need to amend it; 5) smear campaign against opposition political parties, NGOs and international community structures (IREX, International Republican Institute, British, German and US foundations) in state mass media continues and gets even more intensive. This does not look like building up the atmosphere of trust and civil peace in the society; 6) the authorities keep ignoring OSCE Office in Minsk’ recommendations and prevent it from being instrumental in democratizing the Belarusian society. Belarusian authorities fail to cooperate with OSCE in the framework of its mandate. Fears than granting the Chamber of Representatives the seat in the Parliamentary Assembly would not lead to change of behavior pattern of Belarusian authorities and would not add noticeably to building up the civil society in Belarus and getting it closer to OSCE standards turned to be justified; 7) the Chamber of Representatives as a parliament has not been given more powers to make it a meaningful independent legislative body. Members of the deputy group “Respublika” are being put much pressure on. They are being forced to leave the opposition in the parliament and to joint the subservient majority.             Hence Belarusian authorities consistently display their unwillingness to make any progress on the issues that are important to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. They keep neglecting their own obligations made at numerous occasions by different state officials. A. Lukashenko and his government continue to build the authoritarian state that obviously does not fit the pattern of the Common Europe for all peoples. 

Isolating wrongdoers does not mean harming people

Some European politicians argue that it is better to grant Belarus a special guest status in PACE for the sake of ordinary Belarusian people. They claim that by keeping the Belarusian legislative body off the PACE European parliamentarians isolate the people, not the government of Belarus. In fact separating the wrongdoers from people is the best way to demonstrate that behavior and activities of the Belarusian authorities are unacceptable for the organization based on values and high standards of democracy, human rights, protection of life and freedom of expression. PACE and other international organizations made it clear many times that they are open to any country that shares their values and meets their criteria. The authorities had many chances to demonstrate their free will and willingness to abide by the Council of Europe rules and standards. But they have failed to prove that they care about these standards. Moreover they have not even declared their willingness to move towards them. As the right of people in Belarus to elect and to be elected is severely restricted and the parliament hardly performs the representation function not letting the regime of Belarus in the PACE is considered by most of the people in the country as a position of principle taken by PACE. It is not viewed as a stance against the people or the society, not as an attempt to isolate the country in the middle of Europe.

PACE and other international organizations can always send this message by dealing with Belarusian people directly, not through the intermediary of dubious legality. Here are just a few easy and effective forms of having Belarusian people, representatives of the civil society and even the government involved in European integration, of having Belarusian society on board without legitimizing and supporting the rulers of Belarus:

-         developing cooperation among different Belarusian NGOs (youth, human rights and women organizations, media, business and trade union association, ecological organizations) and their European counterparts,

-         establishing closer ties with deputies of local bodies of power and associations of self-government,

-         working with universities, schools, independent think tanks and scholars,

-         developing programs for artists, musicians, librarians and writers,

-         exchanging experience of civilized party building with political parties of Belarus.

-         networking experts and analysts from Belarus and Europe on issues of European integration and “Good Neighborhood” program,

-         arranging training course, conferences and seminars both for members of the government and independent experts on issues of systemic social economic reforms.   If deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, members of national parliaments of PACE countries, political parties that are represented both in the European parliament and PACE take actions along these lines, if they become frequent guests in Belarus it will take much less time to democratize our country than just by giving it a status unconditionally. For quite a long time the Russian government also made a mistake of identifying A. Lukashenko with Belarusian people. They sold gas to the government at very low prices (20 – 29 USD per 1000 m3) hoping that the people of Belarus would benefit from this policy. This year they were quite surprised to learn that households pay 170% of the cost of gas i. e. Belarusian families subsidize loss making industries and support inefficient government programs. For all these years the bureaucrats’ chosen companies have been getting “gas rent” in the form of very big profits. As for ordinary people they are isolated from the benefits of low energy resources prices. Some PACE deputies also believe that it might help ordinary people to become European quicker if Belarus was given a special guest status at present Experience and common sense make it obvious that without clear and effective mechanisms of transforming this decision into practical measures and activities of the authorities there will be just further isolation of the civil society and the people of Belarus from European processes. Few people would be winners of such decision. They can hardly substitute the overwhelming majority of the population that the Council of Europe aims to give a helping hand to.