Belarus tyrant stills voices of freedom

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 28, 2004 | by Steven Lee Myers New York Times News Service

MINSK, Belarus -- By this time in the college semester, Marina Puzdrova would normally be making her way from class to class in the drab brick building on Brovka Street. Her university has been shuttered, though, its students and professors dispersed by the authoritarian whim of this country's president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.

Puzdrova, 19, would have a been a second-year student at the European Humanities University, which since its creation in 1992 has been an outpost of liberal education in an increasingly illiberal place. It was, therefore, a threat to the new state ideology that Lukashenko is steadily building.

Although offered a place at Belarus State University, she and two philosophy classmates, like others at the university, plan to leave Belarus instead, continuing their studies in the Czech Republic.

"There," she said, "we hope to find some more personal freedom."

On Oct. 17, Belarus held a constitutional referendum that gave Lukashenko the right to seek unlimited terms in office. The vote, denounced as illegitimate by political opponents and international observers, consolidated political power in what is already considered to be Europe's last dictatorship.

Like the other nations that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union 13 years ago, this country of 10 million initially embraced its independence, only to have its democratic hopes fade along with Lukashenko's rise to power. Although Lukashenko was first elected in 1994 with a populist mandate to fight corruption and restore stability, the country has become one of the most repressive of the former Soviet republics.

Lukashenko's control extends far beyond politics. In 10 years in power, he has increased his sway over business, the news media, civic organizations and schools -- in short, over anyone or anything that might challenge him.

Journalists have been charged with criticizing the president, a crime punishable by fines, internal exile and up to four years in prison. What few private businesses exist -- nearly 80 percent of the country's economy remains in state hands -- have faced prosecution based on what critics call the slimmest pretenses.

Private organizations have likewise been closed or harassed by the authorities, especially those that have received financial support from Europe or the United States, which Lukashenko regularly denounces in language reminiscent of the Cold War.

The Belarussian Helsinki Committee, the local chapter of the international human-rights organization, has since August 2003 faced a prosecutorial assault for, among other things, failing to use quotation marks around its name on official stationery.

"We think it cannot be worse," Tatsiyana Pratsko, the committee's president, said in an interview in her small office. "And it becomes worse."

The United States and the European Union have increased their own pressure on Belarus, including a ban on travel to their countries by Lukashenko and other senior leaders suspected of involvement in the disappearances of political opponents in 1999 and 2000. Lukashenko has responded by strengthening his grip and intensifying his attacks on those he considers agents of the West.

Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss, has not only retained aspects of Soviet economics but has also moved to re-create the structures that allowed the Soviet Union to maintain order over society.

He issued a decree two years ago that required government agencies, factories and schools to hold "political information" meetings, like those once conducted by the Communists. Last year he created the Belarussian Union of Youth, which, like its Soviet-era inspiration, Komsomol, is a prerequisite to acquiring positions in the university or jobs. He has also established an official ideology, which remains ill-defined though it revolves around the unquestioned power of the presidency.

The government's campaign against the European Humanities University is typical of Lukashenko's operations. In April, the Education Ministry issued an order outlining 26 ways that classes and activities should be regulated in the country's universities. They included restrictions on money from abroad, as well as on exchange programs. One measure called for monitoring of "the moral- psychological climate" in student dorms.

In such a climate, it was clear that the European Humanities University would become a target.

The university was established in the first heady days of Belarussian independence by a group of professors and the Belarussian Orthodox Church, which created its first department of theology. The concept was to create a private institution modeled on universities in Britain and the United States. It began with 67 students but grew to nearly 1,000.

"People with free thought were formed here," said Grigor Y. Miniankov, the dean of the university's philosophy department. "They learned critical thinking. People like that are not wanted here."

In January, the country's education minister, Aleksandr Radkov, called for the resignation of the rector, Anatoly Mikhailov, who refused to go. In July, Lukashenko's administration ordered the university evicted from its rented building on Brovka Street. A week later the Education Ministry revoked its license, citing, in a Kafkaesque twist, its lack of space for classes.