Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06MINSK1187
2006-11-09 13:51:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Minsk
Cable title:  

EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - NOVEMBER 9,

Tags:  PGOV PREL PHUM ECON KTDB EPET BO 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO4856
RR RUEHAST RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHLA RUEHMA RUEHMRE RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHSK #1187/01 3131351
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091351Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY MINSK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5317
INFO RUCNOSC/ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY COOPERATION IN EUROPE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MINSK 001187 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ECON KTDB EPET BO
SUBJECT: EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - NOVEMBER 9,
2006

Ref: Minsk 1162

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MINSK 001187

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ECON KTDB EPET BO
SUBJECT: EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - NOVEMBER 9,
2006

Ref: Minsk 1162


1. The following are brief items of interest compiled by
Embassy Minsk. This edition includes events thru the November 6-
7 Revolution Day holiday. The next edition will cover items
thru November 17.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
--------------

- U.S. and EU Ambassadors Visit Kurapaty (para. 2)
- Foreign Military Experts Verify Belarus' CFE Compliance (para. 3)

CIVIL SOCIETY
--------------

- Police Arrest 12 Opposition Youth Activists (para. 4)
- GOB Still Refuses Hunger-Striking Cozulin Legal Council (para. 5)
- Fourteen Join Kozulin's Hunger Strike (para. 6)
- Authorities Have No Suspects in September 2005 Bombings (para. 7)
- Education Minister Denies Expulsions Are Political (para. 8)
- Regional Opposition Leaders Detained (para. 9)
- Court Overturns Church Expropriation (para. 10)

ELECTIONS
--------------

- Opposition Excluded from Gomel Election Commissions (para. 11)
- Opposition Communist Youths Plan for Local Elections (para. 12)

TRADE AND INVESTMENT
--------------

- Belarus' 2006 Foreign Trade Up by 32 Percent (para. 13)
- Russia Considers Duty on Belarusian Sugar Exports (para. 14)
- Russia Refuses to Sign 2007 Energy Deal with Belarus (para. 15)
- Belarus Chamber of Commerce to Open in PRC, Russia (para. 16)

DOMESTIC ECONOMICS
--------------

- GOB Expects Monthly Pay To Rise to USD 350 (para. 17)
- Economy Minister Claims 2006 Key Economic Targets Met (para. 18)
- GOB Considers 50 Percent Cut in Military Pensions (para. 19)

INDEPENDENT MEDIA
--------------

- New Independent Newspaper in Mogilev (para. 20)
- Editor-in-Chief of Belarusian "Komsomolka" Resigns (para. 21)

SOCIETY
--------------

- Lukashenko Criticizes Belarus' Healthcare System (para. 22)
- Nuclear Power Plant to Be Operational in 2015 (para. 23)

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK (para. 24)

--------------
International Relations
--------------


2. U.S. and EU Ambassadors Visit Kurapaty


On November 2, Ambassador and Heads of Mission of the United
Kingdom, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Latvia,
Poland, and France visited Kurapaty, a wooded area outside Minsk
where Stalin's secret police murdered and buried thousands of
people during the 1930s and 1940s. In response to journalists'
questions, Ambassador explained the importance for a government to
remember and openly discuss tragedies like Kurapaty in order to
ensure that such atrocities were not repeated. Throughout the
week, hundreds of Belarusians commemorated the slayings by laying
flowers and lighting candles at the site.


3. Foreign Military Experts Verify Belarus' CFE Compliance

On October 31, a team of military experts from Belgium, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the United states started their four-
day inspection of the 120th Independent Mechanized Brigade of
Belarus' Armed Forces to verify GOB compliance with the 1990 Treaty
on Conventional Forces (CFE) in Europe, which sets limits on
military equipment deployed by NATO and the former Warsaw Pact.

--------------
Civil Society
--------------

MINSK 00001187 002 OF 004




4. Police Arrest 12 Opposition Youth Activists

On November 1, police arrested 12 youths for their unauthorized
demonstration against the politically motivated conviction and 18
month prison sentence of opposition youth leader Dmitriy Dashkevich
(reftel). The youths formed a human chain on Minsk's October
Square and held images of Dashkevich. Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty Belarusian service reporter Lyubov Lunyova was among those
detained but was released at the square. Police released 10 of the
youths after taking them to the police station and establishing
their identities. The remaining activists, Dmitry Fedoruk and Gleb
Sandros, spent the night in a police lockup and were sentenced in
court to three days in jail for petty hooliganism. Fedoruk
reportedly told pro-opposition website Charter 97 that police had
beaten some of the detained activists. On November 3, Amnesty
International declared Dashkevich a prisoner of conscience.


5. GOB Still Refuses Hunger-Striking Kozulin Legal Counsel

On November 2, Igor Rynkevich, the attorney for imprisoned former
opposition presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin, confirmed that
authorities are still preventing him from meeting with Kozulin.
The Vitba-3 correctional institution warden reportedly announced
that he would not allow the lawyer to meet the former presidential
candidate until the latter ended his open-ended hunger strike,
which Kozulin began on October 20 to protest President Lukashenko's
fraudulent March 19 reelection. Kozulin's daughter, Yuliya,
visited Kozulin the correctional on November 2 and related that the
warden justified the denial on the grounds that a meeting with
Rynkevich would only weaken Kozulin's health. According to
Rynkevich, authorities put Kozulin in the prison's medical unit
together with former lawmaker Sergei Skrebets, who also has been on
hunger strike since October 20. Both petitioned the prison
administration to transfer them back to the barracks.


6. Fourteen Join Kozulin's Hunger Strike

By November 2, fourteen Belarusian Social Democratic Party
"Gramada" (BSDP) and Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC) activists
in Brest began a hunger strike in solidarity with former opposition
presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin. On October 30, BSDP
Brest City Chapter Head Anna Kanyus, a student at European
Humanities University in Vilnius, began the hunger strike and was
later joined by head of the BSDP Brest regional chapter head Igor
Maslovsky, who has called on BSDP activists to fast for up to five
days to draw international attention to Kozulin's politically
motivated imprisonment.


7. Authorities Have No Suspects in September 2005 Bombings

On November 3, Belarus' Main Organized Crime and Corruption
Prevention Office Chief Vladimir Tikhinya announced that
authorities have no suspects and are not holding anyone in
connection to the September 2005 bombings that injured nearly 50
people in the northeastern city of Vitebsk. On October 4, police
had arrested Pavel Krasovskiy, a prominent activist of the youth
opposition organization Malady Front, on the grounds that
Krasovskiy resembled a police composite picture of a suspect but
released him 10 days later upon ascertaining that he was abroad
during explosions. In April, authorities released two other
suspects on their own recognizance but until now had not indicated
whether they remained suspects.


8. Education Minister Denies Expulsions Are Political

On October 27, Belarusian Education Minister Aleksandr Radkov
claimed that not a single student has been expelled from the
country's institutions of higher learning for political reasons.
Last year, Radkov issued a directive that ordered educational
institutions to expel students who participate in opposition
demonstrations.


9. Regional Opposition Leaders Detained

On November 4, police in the southwestern city of Brest prevented
opposition United Civic Party Regional Chair Stepan Novoselchanin
from traveling to KYIV, where he was to attend a conference of
Belarus' opposition activists, by detaining him until after his
train departed. The same day, authorities in the northeastern
city of Mogilev arrested and sentenced to five days in jail
opposition Belarusian Popular Front Regional Chair Grigoriy
Kastusev as he was boarding a train to KYIV for the same
conference. Kastusev was charged with relieving himself in a
public place and sentenced to five days in jail.


10. Court Overturns Church Expropriation

On November 4, Sergey Lukanin, a lawyer for the Minsk-based New
Life Church (NLC),reported that the Supreme Economic Court of

MINSK 00001187 003 OF 004


Belarus overturned all court decisions regarding NLC and will
adjudicate the church's case under original jurisdiction in two
weeks. Earlier this year, Minsk city authorities expropriated a
building and a four-acre plot bought by NLC in 2002.

--------------
Local Elections
--------------


11. Opposition Excluded from Gomel Election Commissions

On November 2, independent media reported that the GOB included
none of the 39 nominees of the opposition United Civic Party and
the Belarusian Party of Communists in the 60 District Election
Commissions (DECs) formed in the eastern Gomel region for Belarus'
January 14 local elections. Of the total 664 DEC members, 41
percent of them were nominated through the signature-collection
procedure, 21.3 percent by "workers' collectives." The remaining
members were nominated by the pro-GOB Federation of Trade Unions of
Belarus, and pro-GOB NGOs, including the Belarusian National Youth
Union, the Belarusian Public Association of War Veterans, and the
Belarusian Union of Women.


12. Opposition Communist Youths Plan for Local Elections

On October 29, the Central Committee of the pro-opposition Lenin
Communist Youth Union of Belarus (LKSMB),purportedly Belarus' only
registered opposition youth party, approved the participation of
LKSMB candidates in Belarus' January 14 local elections. LKSMB
leader Dmitry Yanenko predicted that the elections would be neither
free nor fair but described the election process as "a good school"
for LKSMB activists.

--------------
Trade and Investment
--------------


13. Belarus' 2006 Foreign Trade Up by 32 Percent

On October 30, Belarusian Ministry of Economics reported that
Belarus' foreign trade in goods and services jumped by 32.2 percent
year-on-year during the first eight months of 2006. Exports rose
by 27 percent. Imports rose by 37.6 percent, well above the target
of eight to nine percent.


14. Russia Considers Duty on Belarusian Sugar Exports

On November 1, independent media reported that Russia's Ministry
for Economic Development and Trade has submitted a draft regulation
that would impose an 8.1 percent compensatory duty on Belarusian
sugar exports for a period of three years. The draft followed an
investigation by the Russian Union of Sugar Manufacturers
(Soyuzrossakhar) that concluded that Belarus exported sugar made
from imported raw cane sugar instead of sugar that was domestically
refined from sugar beets. At present, Belarus is exempt from
paying duty on the export of domestically refined sugar, whereas
sugar made from imported raw cane sugar is subject to duty at USD
340 per ton. Soyuzrossakhar estimates the Russian sugar industry's
losses between 2002 and 2005 at more than USD 500 million.
According a source within the Belarusian State Food Industry
Concern, the president and prime minister will consider the issue.


15. Russia Refuses to Sign 2007 Energy Deal with Belarus

On November 3 Russia's Ambassador to Belarus Aleksander Surikov
announced that Russia will not discuss next year's fuel and energy
agreement with Belarus until the dispute regarding the distribution
of oil product export duty between the two budgets has been
settled. Surikov also related that Russia has withdrawn from the
agreement to supply Belarus with natural gas at Russia's domestic
prices and to equalize rail tariffs because of Belarus' apparent
unwillingness to create a joint gas transport venture.


16. Chamber of Commerce to Open in PRC, Russia

On November 2, the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(BCCI) formally decided to open offices in China and St.
Petersburg, Russia in late 2007. At present, BCCI's office in
Leipzig, Germany is its only presence abroad.

--------------
Domestic Economy
--------------


17. GOB Expects Monthly Pay To Rise to USD 350

On November 3, Economy Minister Nikolai Zaichenko said that the
average inflation-adjusted pay is projected to rise by eight to
nine percent and households' real money incomes by 7.5 to 8.5
percent in 2007. According to the official, the average monthly

MINSK 00001187 004 OF 004


pay is expected to grow to USD 350 by the end of next year.


18. Economy Ministry Claims 2006 Key Economic Targets Met

On October 30, Belarus' Ministry of Economics reported that
thirteen of the 16 key targets for Belarus' economic and social
development were met in the first nine months of 2006. According
to the ministry, agricultural output rose by 2.2 percent in that
period. Meanwhile, Belarus' GDP energy intensity fell by 1.5
percent. Real income rose by 17.8 percent year-on-year. The
average real retirement pension in the first nine months increased
by 28.9 percent compared with the level of the same period of 2005.

19. GOB Considers 50 Percent Cut in Military Pensions
On October 27, independent media reported that Belarusian Deputy
Prime Minister Viktor Burya is considering a plan to cut military
pensions by 50 percent in order to reduce GOB budgetary
expenditures. The Belarus' Finance Ministry projects USD 40
million in savings.

--------------
Independent Media
--------------


20. New Independent Newspaper in Mogilev

On October 31, a new independent newspaper published its first
issue in the eastern city of Mogilev. According to "Nash Mogilev"
(Our Mogilev) Editor Andrey Dvigun, the paper will come out once a
month at an initial stage and then will become a weekly, covering
social and economic events in the city. The paper will feature a
political insert section titled "Mogilevskaya Koalitsiya" (Mogilev
Coalition),and an editorial staff including members from local
youth organizations.


21. Editor-in-Chief of Belarusian "Komsomolka" Resigns

On November 2, independent media reported the resignation of Yuliya
Slutskaya, Editor-in-Chief of the "Komsomolskaya Pravda v
Belorussii," the largest independent newspaper in Belarus.
According to press reports, Slutskaya has been offered a job with
the NGO Belarusian Association of Journalists.

--------------
Society
--------------


22. Lukashenko Criticizes Belarus' Healthcare System

On October 29, President Lukashenko criticized Belarus' healthcare
and asserted that more than half of Belarusians are dissatisfied
with the quality of medical services. According to Lukashenko,
more than 50 percent of interviewed people are unhappy about
doctors' bedside manner and 45 percent complain of a shortage of
specialists in out-patient clinics. Lukashenko stressed the need
to modernize hospitals and other healthcare institutions.


23. Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant to Be Operational in 2015

On October 30, during a visit to Russia, Belenergo Chief Engineer
Aleksandr Sivak said that Belarus was determined to pursue its
atomic power program with the first unit of a yet-to-be constructed
Belarusian nuclear power plant expected to be put into operation in

2015. Sivak linked Belarus' decision to build the plant to
increasing natural gas prices.

--------------
Quote of the Week
--------------


24. On November 1, after hearing Judge Alla Bulash's decision to
sentence him to 18 months in prison on politically motivated
charges, opposition youth leader Dmitriy Dashkevich quietly but
defiantly replied to the judge:

"This is my victory. This is my victory."

Stewart