The President of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in Exile (BNR) Ivonka Survilla has reached out to European leaders to seek their help in curtailing grevious abuses against some the best and brightest young people in Belarus. Excerpts from two such letters follow:
To: Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy.
“One of the achievements in 2008 (in Belarus) has been the liberation of Mr. Kazulin and two younger political prisoners. For a moment, we believed Mr. Lukashenka had understood that it is in his interest to coopererate with Europe. I am sorry to say that our hopes were unfounded. The practice of jailing opponents has been replaced by a more subtle way of depriving our most precious youth activists of freedom. After being expelled from the universities where they had been studying, they are then immediately drafted into the army...”
“While I am most thankful to you for trying to show Mr. Lukashenka that Europe is ready to help him preserve the independence of Belarus, he should not believe that he will get away with everything. I ask for your continued diligence in upholding the human rights for those Belarusians who are fighting to bring change and democracy to their country.”
(Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner has plans to personally visit Belarus.)
To: Jacek Protasiewicz, Chairman of European Parliament Delegation to the Republic of Belarus.
“I would like to express my appreciation for your intervention to help Belarusian youth in the new struggle they are facing - the forced drafting into the army after their expulsion from schools and universities. The three latest cases - Franak Viachorka, Ivan Shyla, and Zmicier Fedaruk - are not only a shameless violation of human rights, but a new way to keep our best young men from participating in any kind of political life. I have myself tried to intervene wherever I could, and have been quite happy to see that you have already done the necessary in the Parliament of Europe.”
This article appeared in
Belarusian Review, Vol. 21, No. 1
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25 march 2009
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