European Forum

Lukashenka’s statements on political prisoners release provoke cynical reactions

Last week (2 September) following the agreement between the EU member-state Bulgaria and Belarusian leadership four political activists, detained after the protests against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s recurrent elections victory last year, were released on the basis of presidential pardon.

All freed, Ales Kirkevich (Young Front), Andrey Protasenya, Oleg Gnedchik and Dmitriy Doronin (civil activists), had to write pardon letters to Lukashenka. Although Belarusian incumbent leader has also affirmed his intention to release the rest of the country’s political prisoners by mid-October, the opposition and EU leaders have discreetly reacted to his promises. Some opposition members have greeted Lukashenka’s pledge, namely Anatoly Lyabedzka, one of those earlier freed, described the release of political prisoners as one of the biggest positive steps in the direction of EU-Belarus dialogue restoration. At the same time, others remained skeptical stressing upon the insufficiency of the statements. The newly freed Andrey Protasenya commented he would be certain only after seeing other opposition activists freed.
 
Reactions of the EU
In the course of economic decline Lukashenka’s pledge is evidently motivated by the hopes for restoring the dialogue with the European Union which was suspended after the contradictory elections in Belarus on December 19 and which also led to the imposition and further extension of economic sanctions on Belarus from the EU side. However, taking into account the previous inconsistency in Lukashenka’s attitude to his relations with the West, including the last year postelection crackdown and its following arrests, the EU might have prepared new conditions for the dialogue renewal. “The West can resume dialogue, but a return to the conditions and basic principles that were being discussed in the run-up to the election campaign is already impossible,”- says political scientist Alyaksey Karol. Indeed, the reactions of EU leaders confirm the existence of firmer prerequsisites for EU-Belarus dialogue renewal. During the discussion on Belarus at the informal meeting of the bloc’s FMs in Sopot, Poland, EU foreign policy chief Katherine Ashton emphasized no negotiation could start until the complete release of all political prisoners. Furthermore, Poland’s FM Radoslaw Sikorski remarked the necessity of political prisoners liberation jointly with the renewal of their access to political activity.

Still the key political opposition figures remain jailed. Among them there are three ex-presidential candidates sentenced for 5, 5,5 and 6 years of imprisonment.

Sources: RFE/RL, Charter97.org, Trust.org, Belarusdigest.