| 22.01.2011 |
Russian President’s Blog On Belarus
After reading the official English translation (http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/1052) of the Russian president’s October 3 blog, this writer has become concerned with the meaning of such phrases as ”united by... centuries-old history,” ”shared culture,” ”our single nation,” ”the Union State, CSTO,” ”our peoples will forever be fraternal,” and ”our nations are inextricably linked,” all implying that Russia still considers Belarus as an inherent part of the Russian Empire. President Medvedev seems to be ignorant of the fact that Russia, the USA, Great Britain and Belarus signed a memorandum at the December 1994 CSCE Budapest summit in which they guaranteed Belarus’ independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. |
| 22.01.2011 |
Lukashenka Holds Dialogue In Minsk With US Analysts
(Part Two)
Receiving a small group of US analysts in Minsk (EDM, December 15), President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, appealed to the United States to develop a multi-track policy toward Belarus, instead of a single-dimensional policy [implying democracy-promotion divorced from everything else]. |
| 22.01.2011 |
Kramer - Pressure Should Be Exerted on the Dictator
”Belarus 2010: Presidential Elections, Political Stability and Foreign Relations” was the title of the discussion presented by the School of Advanced Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins UNiversity in Washington, D.C. Different aspects of te subject were presented by Orest Deycakiwsky (see his preceding article), historian Taras Kuzio and David Kramer, with Mitchell Orenstein of SAIS, as the chair and discussant. |
| 22.01.2011 |
Lukashenka Holds Dialogue In Minsk With US Analysts
(Part One)
On December 14 in Minsk, Belarusian President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, received a small group of US analysts for a discussion on US-Belarus relations. The group, drawn from several Washington think-tanks, visited Belarus at its own initiative, from a variety of policy and professional interests. Lukashenka’s unprecedented meeting with such a group, and the free-wheeling discussion lasting almost three hours, partly on the record, highlighted his wish to normalize relations with the United States. Those relations are currently all but frozen, contrasting with the normalization trend in EU-Belarus relations. Belarus is holding an internationally monitored presidential election on December 19, with Lukashenka likely to be re-elected handily against ten minor candidates in the race. Public opinion surveys, including those commissioned for the government’s confidential use (Information-Analytical Center of the Presidential Administration, Weekly Monitoring of Public Opinion, December 10) indicate approval ratings in the range of 70 percent for the incumbent president. |
| 22.01.2011 |
Belarusian Elections And Domestic Politics
Overview
Over the course of the last 15 years, the Belarusian people have been subjected to the arbitrary and self-serving whims of a corrupt and anti-democratic regime. Belarus has the poorest domestic human rights record of any country entirely located in Europe today. 14 years ago next week marks Lukashenka’s first major power grab, the illegitimate constitutional referendum that led to the liquidation of the democratically elected parliament and centralization of power in the executive branch. And, for the most part, it’s been a downward spiral from there, including a string of fundamentally flawed elections, and the manipulation of the country's constitution in another, 2004 referendum abolishing two-term limits, i.e. extending his presidency. |
| 16.01.2011 |
Lukashenka the Loser
There can be no business-as-usual between the European Union and Belarus' president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, after what has happened since the presidential election in Belarus last Sunday. |
| 16.01.2011 |
Free the Political Prisoners In Belarus Now
MINSK—Peace and quiet reign on Independence Square — Christmas trees sparkle in the snow, the traffic is flowing, people are heading home to prepare for the holidays. Yet on Sunday, this square in the center of the Belarusian capital witnessed the largest protests against dictatorial rule in a decade, when thousands of President Alexander Lukashenko’s riot police and army troops brutally cracked down on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters. All normal? Not quite. |
| 06.07.2010 |
Eastern Partnership ‘Absolutely a Success’
There are concerns the European Union’s market crisis will dramatically scale back its ambitions for outreach programs with its neighbors -- including its Eastern Partnership. |
| 05.07.2010 |
PACE Suspends its High-Level Contacts with the
Belarusian Government and Parliament
Strasbourg, 29.04.2010 – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today decided to suspend its activities involving high-level contact with the Belarusian Parliament and/or the governmental authorities, having noted a “lack of progress” towards Council of Europe standards and a “lack of political will” on the part of the authorities to adhere to the Organisation’s values. |
| 11.04.2010 |
Political Sphere in Belarus: From Marxism-Leninism To Political Science
Like its native country, the discipline of political science in Belarus will take decades to outgrow its Soviet past. After all, most of the country’s contemporary social science luminaries were brought up on the volumes of scientific communism, memorizing the blessings of the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship, and today force-feed their own students with courses like the “Ideology of the Belarusian State.” As a result, the spectre of communist past still haunts the Belarusian academia. |
| 11.04.2010 |
US Mission to the OSCE
Statement on Freedom of Assembly in Belarus
As delivered by Political Counselor Casey Christensen
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
February 25, 2010 |
| 11.01.2010 |
Doing Business With Lukashenka’s Regime
Typically, one would not expect to find a “Special Report” on Belarus in The Financial Times. In recent years, most of the western business community has shown limited interest in the country. It wasn’t so long ago, that some people joked about turning the country into an amusement park for people nostalgic over the break-up of the Soviet Union. While politics may have played a contributing role in this lack of interest, it was more likely the perception that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to undertake profitable activities in Belarus. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Lukashenka Makes Key Leadership Changes in Belarus
On December 4, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka made sweeping changes to the higher echelons of the leadership. The changes reflect both adverse news on the economic front and the installment of some hard-line personalities on the eve of a series of elections that will monopolize the next 12-15 months. The main opposition newspaper refers to the changes as “KGBization” and restoring ideological control over the media (Narodnaya Volya, December 5). |
| 11.01.2010 |
New Blocs Cooperation With Regime
Lyavon Barshcheuski, the former head of the Belarusian Popular Front says creation of the Belarusian Independent Bloc (BIB) is a “capitulatory project and treason”. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Opinion Poll Reveals the Impact of The Global Recession on Belarus
A synopsis of the latest opinion poll (September 2009) conducted in Belarus by the Independent Institute of Social-Economic and Political Research has been published on the Institute’s website (www.iiseps.org). The Charter 97 website issued a press release, which maintained that given a choice, Belarusians would join the European Union, but decline to join the Russia-Belarus Union (RBU). It further declared that based on the poll, a majority of Belarusians now wish to replace Alyaksandr Lukashenka as president (www.charter97.org, October 5). This analysis, however, over-simplifies the issues and obfuscates the attitude of the Belarusian population to the consequences of the economic crisis and current bilateral relations with Russia. |
| 11.10.2009 |
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
On 1 September, 2009 the world marked the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the World War II. Many political leaders including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel took part in the commemoration ceremony in the Polish city of Gdansk. |
| 11.10.2009 |
CENTRAL and EAST EUROPEAN COALITION
MEETS with U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS
Washington, DC– Following two very important foreign policy trips by President Obama to Moscow and Vice President Biden to Ukraine and Georgia, the Central and East European Coalition (CEEC), an assembly of 18 ethnic organizations representing the communities of Central and East European descent, had an opportunity to meet with the principal architects for the Obama Administration’s foreign policy agenda. |
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