Belarusian oppositionists met with members of US Congress in Vilnius (Updated)

Leaders of the Belarusian opposition introduced the members of the US Congress their plan of Belarus’s democratization.

The meeting took place in Vilnius on April 16. It was attended by former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin, head of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka, deputy head of the Belarusian Popular Front party Vintsuk Vyachorka, deputy chairperson of the “For Freedom” movement Viktar Karnyaenka, co-head of the organizing committee on creation of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party and head of the Belarusian Union of Journalists Zhanna Litvina.

The US delegation, leading by Shelley Berkley, was represented by four members of Democratic Party and three republicans.

“We had a constructive dialogue on the situation in Belarus,” Lyabedzka told. “We introduced our Belarus’s democratization plan, the so called map road. “

The Belarusian participants raised a question of political prisoners, restricted to leave the country on political motives, forceful draft for military service of young men who can’t serve in army due to medical condition. They also discussed their vision of America’s role in a dialogue with the Belarusian authorities, ucpb.org reports.

“We stand for creation of the Euro-Atlantic coalition on the Belarusian issue, for visits of joint delegations of representatives of the Department of the State and the European Commission to Minsk,” Anatol Lyabedzka told. “It probably would be useful to create a joint group of MEPs and members of the US Congress. At any rate, this is very important for us. We spoke about Belarus Democracy Act, about the necessity to prolong this document, establishing a political and a legal passage serving as a basis for the US’s position towards Belarus.”

According to the UCP leader, the embers of the UC Congress said they didn’t expect any positions of Washington towards Belarus to change.

It should be reminded that in the morning April 16, Belarusian politicians faced problems when crossing the Belarusian-Lithuanian board. According to Anatol Lyabedzka, when crossing the border at Kamenny Loh checkpoint, Alyaksandr Kazulin was offered to fill in the declaration and be searched. Border guards turned close attention youth opposition activist Artur Finkevich. A stamp “Exit denied” was made in his passport, and the young man had to return to Minsk.

According to Lyabedzka, Belarusian border guards and customs officers did their best for the politicians to be late for a meeting with congressmen. “There was a queue of cars on the Lithuanian side, it would have taken us two hours to stay in the queue,” the UCP leader said. “We explained the situation to Lithuanian border guards and let us jump the queue. So we managed not to be late for the meeting.”