Lithuania and Poland complicit in Belarus crackdown

Petras Vaida, BC, Vilnius, 20.03.2012.

A cell in a top security penal colony in eastern Belarus is now home to human rights defender Ales Bialistki, a man whose relentless pursuit of freedom for his fellow citizens is costing him four and a half years' hard labor, writes LETA, referring to EU Observer.

Ales Bialistki.

Bialistki was transferred to the
Babruisk labor camp in February following a trial which made a mockery of
justice. He is forced to build wooden boxes, while his Minsk-based human rights
organization, Viasna, struggles to provide badly needed services for people
under the scourge of a regime 18 years in power and counting.

His wife, Natalia, told this
reporter in November in a cafe off Victory Square in central Minsk that she
fears for her husband's wellbeing.

KGB agents have been trailing her
for months and her son has fled the country. But despite the almost
insurmountable pressure on her, she was able to smile and reminisce about life
with a man who had brought her happiness.

Long before Lithuania and Poland
handed over confidential information to Belarusian authorities which led to
Bialistki's arrest, Natalia had begun preparing herself for what she saw as the
inevitable day when police would drag him off. On the evening of August 5,
2011, masked KGB agents in black uniforms forced their way into their summer
dacha.

For the past 15 years, Viasna has
provided practical support for families and victims of political oppression. It
is one of the few voices that still makes itself heard in the cacophony and
white noise of President

Alexander
Lukashenko's

regime. Every year it publishes a book-length analysis of
human rights violations in Belarus. Every year it gets longer.

It has a long history of run-ins with
the KGB.

When it was banned from receiving
international funding, it opened bank accounts under Bialistki's name in
Lithuania and Poland. In March last year, authorities in both countries handed
over those very bank account details to Belarus.

Ausra Bernotiene

, the former head of the international law
department at Lithuania's ministry of justice, who delivered the information,
has since resigned and now heads the international relations unit at
Lithuania's national court administration.

"Having in mind the
sensitivity of this issue, I do hope that you will respect my decision not to
present any personal view or position concerning this story [which] all of us
are sorry about," she told EUobserver
in an email.

Some analysts say it was an
innocent mistake and that she was made a scapegoat.

According to Lithuanian officials,
the transfer of personal information to Belarus without prior screening is
routine. The two countries have a bilateral agreement, dating back to 1992, on
legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal matters.

The ministry of justice claims
nobody knew who Bialistki was and that the blunder should not discredit its
previous pro-human-rights work in Belarus.

The claim is hard to believe given
that Lithuania was at the time the chairman of the Vienna-based rights
watchdog, the OSCE, and had a special office in Minsk. Despite an outcry by MPs
which nearly cost the minister of justice his job, promises of an enquiry were
never kept.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian President

Dalia Grybauskaite

, a former EU
commissioner, then as now, continues to protect the regime.

In October 2010, two months before
Lukashenko's re-election and the violent crackdown which followed, she was
photographed shaking the president's hand in Minsk. "Lukashenko is a
guarantor of economic and political stability in Belarus, its
independence," she said in November. In early March this year, she
reiterated her long-standing position against economic sanctions on Belarus.

A Belarusian politician told EUobsever that her loyalty helps keep
the lucrative transit of Belarusian potash and oil flowing to Lithuania's main
port. Should she waiver, Lukashenko will divert the transit to competitors in
Latvia and Estonia.

"The President of Lithuania
needs Belarus' trade through its port in Klaipeda. The port was her main
presidential campaign backer,"

Irena
Khalip

, the wife of another prominent political prisoner in Belarus, Andrei
Sannikov, told this website.

As for Ausra Bernotiene, her
husband is a partner in a law firm with extensive business ties in Belarus.

A week after Bialistki's arrest,
his company won the Corporate Intl Magazine 2011 Global Award for "Banking
& Finance Law Firm of the Year in Belarus." That same year, it held
several presentations and meetings in Belarus with Belarusian lawyers and
investment and consulting companies. It also met consultants to develop the
country's image, Belarussian venture capital investors and representatives from
the securities market.

Like its neighbour to the north,
Poland also handed over bank details to Belarus. But unlike Lithuania, it do
not claim ignorance or inter-institutional incompetence.

To compound its embarrassment, the
country's prosecutor general sent the information shortly before Warsaw hosted
an EU summit dedicated to improving the situation in six post-Soviet countries,
including Belarus – the so-called Eastern Partnership.

Poland says sorry

"I'm sorry on behalf of the
republic," Polish foreign minister

Radoslaw
Sikorski

tweeted back in August.

Marcin Bosacki

, the Polish foreign ministry's press spokesman
distanced the government from the prosecutor. Bosacki said the ministry had
warned him not to hand over any details. "Unfortunately, these warnings
had no effect on one institution, meaning the prosecutor general's office. Why
not? That's a question for the prosecutor general," he said.

However it came about, Lithuania
and Poland's action has had serious consquences beyond Bialistki's
incarceration.

On top of his jail sentence,
authorities are to confiscate the first floor apartment in Minsk which he
purchased 12 years ago and Viasna, which operates out of the premises, has been
given two months to clear out.

Viasna vice-president,

Stefanovic Valiantsin

, whose personal
bank details were also on the Lithuanian and Polish lists, has been fined 2,000
euros – a king's ransom in a country where the average wage is less than 200
euros a month.

Irena Khalip made clear just how
badly Belarus needs people like Bialistki and Valiantsin to keep doing their work.

She is currently under house arrest
and cannot travel outside Minsk. Amid reports of torture in Lukashenko's jails
and claims that an inmate with tuberculosis was deliberately introduced into
his cell, she last saw her husband in January and says that he is nearing
death.