Czech Prime Minister met with Belarusian democrats
- 7.05.2009, 10:50
Mirek Topolanek, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, had a meeting with leaders of the Belarusian opposition Ivonka Survila, Alyaksandr Kazulin, Alyaksandr Milinkevich, Zyanon Paznyak, and Stanislau Shushkevich ahead of the Eastern Partnership summit.
“We have come to talk with different politicians about the Eastern Partnership program. We welcome the new initiative of Europe, but we have remarks and wishes. We wish the EaP was the first step towards Europe taken by Belarus, allowing Belarus to take the stand it deserves. If some things are not arranged in proper way, this will not only move Belarus away from Europe, but also have a contrary result.
We have expressed our opinion that it is very important not to allow an alliance between Lukashenka and Europe. This should be an agreement between Europe and the Belarusian people. For this, we need civil society to be one of the parties of this agreement. If this condition is put from the very beginning, Lukashenka will have either agree with it or not agree. If the civil society is a party of this agreement, it will be able to see that all conditions to be fulfilled, and that a condition of culture to be added,” Ivonka Survila, head of the Council of the Belarusian National Republic, told in an interview to Radio Svaboda.
“We seta task to us to convince EU politicians Lukashenka shouldn’t be invited to Prague. In fact, we have succeeded. It doesn’t mean it was only our merit, but we have done everything we planned. Possible presence of Lukashenka in Prague was very important for the Belarusians. Our youth and all people concerned had very negative and pessimistic attitude towards this, they regard this as treachery of Belarus’s interests. Even a visit to Rome demonstrated this badly reaction. A. Lukashenka could have regarded this as a carte blanche for his policy, he could have thought he can continue repressions. Not all politicians have understood this, our task was to explain. Thank God, we have succeeded,” Zyanon Paznyak, leader of the Conservative Christian Party BPF, said.
“Europe found resources to develop democracy not only the southern Europe, as it was with the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, but also in Eastern Europe. Europe wants to see Belarus a law-based state because Europeans understand we are not a law-based state now, we have no democracy, no elections, certain people are just appointed to posts without counting the votes. They say it’s not the best variant of development in the East, so let’s tell them they should look for an approach that could offer well being and better life for people. We explained little to Mirek Topolanek, because he understands the situation in Belarus and realizes these are his last days as the head of the Czech parliament, so he says if we settle certain questions, those who will lead the parliament in future and those who will head the EU will take the way we discuss now,” Stanislau Shushkevich, former chairman of the Supreme Council, said.