Sannikov, McCain Discuss Future Of Belarus

The struggle against dictatorships is returning to the world agenda again.

The International Security Forum was held in Halifax (Canada), on 18-20 November. Belarus was represented by former presidential candidate, leader of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Andrei Sannikov.

This year, the Forum brought together the representatives of 70 countries. The substantial delegation of the US Congress headed by Senator John McCain, the heads of the Ministries of Defence of the USA, Canada, Europe, NATO officials, diplomats, members of parliament, leading analysts, civil society activists, and businessmen took part in the forum.

This forum was the first major international conference after the US presidential election. Naturally, the policy of the new American administration and its attitude towards NATO, Russia, Europe, the global crisis was in the center of all discussions.

The agenda of the forum was very rich: the future of democracy, changes in the political map of the world, the war in Ukraine, international terrorism, aggressive policy of Russia, the Syrian crisis, the global role of China, the rise of nationalism in the world, cyber security, climate change, etc.

Andrei Sannikov met with many participants of the conference, raised the issue of the situation in Belarus at plenary sessions, discussions in the topic groups, and in conversations with politicians. The “European Belarus” leader discussed the existing threats to Belarus’ independence from the side of Russia and Lukashenka’s regime, given the fact that nuclear states ignored the Budapest memorandum in the situation with Ukraine, with the US Senators Jeanne Shaheen and John McCain.

With the Deputy Secretary General of NATO Rose Gotemoeller and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Gen. Petr Pavel the Belarusian politician mentioned that, with the help of Lukashenka, Russia insistently involves Belarus in its war plans, and noted the increased number of military exercises at the territory of Belarus.

Sannikov stressed that Lukashenka’s "peacemaking" role in the Ukrainian conflict does not correspond with the real actions on growing military capabilities on the Western borders of Belarus.

At the meetings with Canadian politicians and representatives of the MFA Andrei Sannikov also discussed the necessity to support the Belarusian civil society, human rights defenders and political prisoners. He paid particular attention to the complicated state of the Belarusian independent media, which have to counterstand not only against the dictatorship inside the country, but the Russian aggressive propaganda as well.

The situation in Belarus was also discussed in details with representatives of Ukraine, whose delegation was led by Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.

It should be noted that despite the acute global crisis, the situation in Belarus has not disappeared from the international agenda.

"Perhaps the concerns connected with the pre-election statements of Donald Trump forced the international community to think seriously about the state of democracy in the world and to pay more attention to the dictatorial regimes. There were many talks at the forum about the need to support democracy, the development of preventive measures against authoritarianism and dictatorship ," - Andrei Sannikov told the charter97.org website