William Hague comes down on Belarus
- 1.07.2011, 14:17
The chief of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office met with representative of the Belarusian Committee.
At a meeting in the FCO in London on June 30, the British party was represented by Foreign Secretary William Hague and Minister for Europe David Lidington and Belarus was represented by leader of Free Belarus Now civil campaign Iryna Bahdanava, Elena Edwards, heads of the Belarus Free Theatre Natallya Kalyada and Mikalai Khalezin, representative of Index on Censorship Mike Harris, head of the Association of Belarusian in Great Britain Mikalai Pachkaeu, Professor Alan Flowers. The meeting was initiated by the FCO in response to a letter from the Belarusian Committee to William Hague and to consistent activities of the Committee on the international arena.
The main topics discussed during the events were the current political and social situation in Belarus, problems relating to political prisoners, political and economic sanctions against the Belarusian authorities, and European policy towards Belarus.
The meeting was opened with a discussion of the events on last Wednesday, when BBC journalists were beaten, a camera of Reuters cameraman was broken, and Belarusian visas for BBC television crew were annulled.
The problem of political prisoners was a key topic. The Belarusian party gave its detailed vision of the today’s problems: health of Zmitser Bandarenka; pressing on Mikita Likhavid from the penal colony administration; confinement conditions of presidential candidates Andrei Sannikov, Mikalai Statkevich and Dzmitry Uss; tortures in detention facilities and prisons.
British officials were informed about messages from Andrei Sannikov and Mikalai Statkevich, who said they were not agree on economic trading in exchange of their release. Iryna Bahdanava, the sister of Andrei Sannikov, said: “I am speaking on behalf of my brother, who suffers from imprisonment, tortures and pressure on his family members. He deserves not to become a bargain chip in the trade between the European Union and Belarusian dictatorship. Only one decision is possible – unconditional release of all political prisoners, carrying out new transparent presidential elections under control of the international community.”
The issue of targeted economic sanctions was widely discussed: from methods of imposing to enlisting objects that should be applied to. The parties agreed that sanctions should impact ordinary not Belarusians, but organizations, entities and persons bearing relations to the country’s leadership, law-enforcement bodies and courts delivering political motivated sentences. Natallya Kalyada explained the position of the Belarusian Committee: “One should not think that economic sanctions will harm the people of Belarus. The greatest economic harm to the country and its people comes from the Belarusian regime. Belarusians made their choice by taking to streets on December 19 and taking to streets today in spite of severe pressure from the authorities. Now it’s turn for Europe to show if it can set aside its geopolitical and business interests and do what if should have done long ago – support the people of Belarus, not the dictator.”
In order the British minister could imagine better what is the Belarusian dictator like, they were handed in photos of Alyaksandr Lukashenka in a company with Muammar Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, Hugo Chavez.
Mike Harris, the head Index on Censorship, said after the meeting that after a slow start, the British government tries to take the leadership in solving the Belarusian issue. David Lidington was very interested in the problem, he noted adding that the effectiveness of actions must be proved by concrete results and especially the fact if the EU could step by step expand sanctions against the Belarusian leadership.