Brussels Forum: Sanctions against Lukashenka regime must be strengthened

The Belarusian issue became one of the key themes at the Brussels Forum.

Andrei Sannikov, the coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign, has been representing Belarus for previous years at the prestigious Brussels Forum, the event uniting the world's political and economic elite. The Belarusian presidential candidate has been in prison for over a year accused of organizing protests against the rigged election.

Due to the arrest of Andrei Sannikov, Belarus was represented for two years in succession by his sister Iryna Bahdanava, an initiator of legal prosecution of Lukashenka; head of the Belarus Free Theatre Natallia Kaliada and head of We Remember Foundation Iryna Krasouskaya.

This year's forum was attended by EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton; NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen; US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who initiated hearing on Belarus in the US Senate; Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt; Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski; Belgian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders; Ukrainian and Bulgarian Foreign Ministers Kostyantyn Gryshchenko and Nickolay Mladenov; Chair of the Board at the Centre for Liberal Strategies Ivan Krastev; Former Prime Minister of Libya Mahmoud Gebril; former President of Lebanon Amine Gemayel and others.

A question of imprisonment of an annual participant of the Forum, Andrei Sannikov, was raised several times. A Belarusian issue brought up many times.

“We initiated a discussion on Belarus at the panel to discuss the situation in Syria in connection with Belarusian weapon supplies to the country,” Natallia Kaliada told charter97.org website. “Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov spoke at the panel discussion. We asked the minister why the negotiations to involve dictatorial Belarus into European processes were initiated in spite of tortures of political prisoners in the country and weapon supplies to rogue states, including Syria. Mladenov replied he was ready to deal with such people like Lukashenka to save the lives of political prisoners. Andrei Sannikov's sister Iryna Bahdanava said political prisoners had faced even more severe tortures after Mladenov's visit to Belarus, but EU economic sanctions were not imposed due to Lukashenka's empty promise to release all prisoners of conscience.”

The Belarusian issues was raised as a separate theme at the panel discussion The Eastern European Partners: Going East, West, or Nowhere?

A moderator of the discussion was Bruce Jackson, the President of Project on Transitional Democracies. Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the US Congress Michael Turner and Natallia Kaliada took part in the discussion.

“As sanctions against the Lukashenka regime were introduced on the day of arrival of the Belarusian delegation, we thanked Baroness Ashton for that step, but explained the EU should go to an end and apply tough measures to release political prisoners. Asked by Bruce Jackson what sanctions should be imposed, we said Europe should understand the dictatorship in Belarus will be strengthening and that's why adequate measures should be applied.

We presented an action plan for the world community in relation to Belarus:

1. Everything already done in relation to the Belarusian regime is not the limit. Boundaries and rules need to be broken. As Vaclav Havel once said: Politics is the art of the impossible.

2. Actions should be taken in time. In January 2011, Catherine Ashton said it was an issue of some days to impose EU sanctions on the Belarusian regime, as the United States did. We welcome the sanctions introduced, but they were imposed 13 months later and to the full extent. Had they been introduced in time, all political prisoners would have been released, a metro bombing would not have happened and two men would not have been executed.

3. No dialogue or involving the authorities into cooperation with the EU can be discussed until all political prisoners are released and rehabilitated.

4. Old and stable democracies (such as Germany, the UK, France) should explain to new European democracies (such as Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Slovenia) construction of a hotel in Belarus is not worth the lives of political prisoners.

5. Think globally. If Belarus supplies weapons to Syria and Iran, it cannot viewed outside the global processes.

6. A decision on issuing free EU visas to Belarusians should be taken to give them a possibility to compare what can be better: moving to the East or to the West feeling support from Europe at this minimal level.

7. If you think you did everything possible for Belarus, ask yourselves: Were bodies of the kidnapped opposition members found? Was the death penalty abolished? Were political prisoners released?

8. If Europe wants to position itself as a Union being rather ambitious to solve the problems of Syria and Iran, it should solve the Belarusian issue first.

Talking about sanctions we paid attention to imposing an embargo on oil products and expelling Belarusian ambassadors from European capitals as one of the variant of applying further pressure on the Belarusian authorities,” Natallia Kaliada said.