08/18/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10075

BELARUS

Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11^th, the U.S. and other nations have joined together in an effort to cut off arms and funding to terrorist groups like Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida, and state sponsors of terrorism like Libya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Syria. But some governments appear to be defying this international consensus.

As U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Pifer (PYE-fer) said on August 13^th, some of the actions of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government raise questions about which side it is on in the war on terrorism. According to Mr. Pifer, the Belarusian government has had "specific contacts" with Iraq. The State Department has evidence that a group of Iraqi military officers received training in Belarus last year. The Iraqis were reportedly trained to use the S-300 anti-aircraft system against British and U.S. jets patrolling the "no-fly" zones over Iraq.

According to the State Department, there is also evidence that the Lukashenko government has sold weapons to a state sponsor of international terrorism -- Sudan. Mr. Pifer says the Belarusian government has done nothing since March to make its arms sales more transparent.

At the same time, President Lukashenko has failed to take steps toward democracy. Earlier this month, the U.S. embassy in Belarus said the human rights situation in the country was continually worsening.

On August 12^TH, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote President Lukashenko to protest his government’s "continued use of libel lawsuits and official harassment in its unyielding assault" on Belarus’ independent press. The Belarusian government, the letter stated, "systematically violates the fundamental right of press freedom and forces independent journalists to work in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation." Another monitoring group, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), recently condemned the Belarusian authorities’ administrative harassment of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service and Minsk Bureau.

These abuses are part of a larger pattern of human rights violations by Belarus. If Belarus wants to belong to the ranks of civilized nations it must cut its ties to state sponsors of terrorism and end repression at home.