EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - February 08, 2008

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MINSK 000091 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ECON ENRG BO SUBJECT: EMBASSY MINSK WEEKLY POL/ECON REPORT - February 08, 2008 ¶1. The following are brief items of interest compiled by Embassy Minsk. TABLE OF CONTENTS Civil Society -------------- - Opposition Communist Party Resumes Activities (para. 2) - BKGB Questions Belarusian Christian Democrat (para. 3) - Opposition to Campaign for Youth Activist Release (para. 4) - Opposition Leaders Banned from Traveling Abroad (para. 5) - Protestants Protest Pressure from Authorities (para. 6) Domestic Economy -------------- - Foreign Debt Continues to Rise (para. 7) - Ministry Plans to Reduce Profitless Companies (para. 8) International Trade -------------- - GOB Plans Five Billion kWh in Electricity Imports (para. 9) Quote of the Week (para. 10) -------------- -------------- Civil Society -------------- ¶2. Opposition Communist Party Resumes Activities Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC) spokesperson Sergey Voznyak informed the media February 4 that the party resumed its activities after a six-month suspension. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) warned the BPC over alleged low membership and its participation in the Union of Left Parties conference abroad prior to suspension. The BPC was also facing liquidation, but the Supreme Court dismissed the MOJ case on January 31. The BPC Central Committee met February 3 and adopted a budget and a plan of activities for first half of ¶2008. ¶3. BKGB Questions Belarusian Christian Democrat BKGB officers questioned Oleg Leshchinskiy, Mozyr-based coordinator of the unregistered Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD) party, February 1. The officers warned Leshchinskiy for acting on behalf of an unregistered organization and threatened him with "complications at work." They also claimed that the BCD would never be registered while led by prominent opposition leaders Aleksey Shein and Pavel Severinets. ¶4. Opposition to Campaign for Youth Activist Release Opposition forces held an organizational meeting February 4 to set up a committee to campaign for the release of youth activist Andrey Kim. Kim was scheduled to be released from jail February 1 after a 10-day sentence for participation in the unsanctioned January 21 entrepreneurs' demonstration. However, authorities filed additional charges of using threats of violence against a police officer and have kept him in prison. The activist now faces up to six years in prison if convicted of the new charges, which supporters call "politically motivated." The committee will keep the local and international community informed both about Kim's case and about persecution of other activists. ¶5. Opposition Leaders Banned From Traveling Abroad Malady Front (MF) activists Dmitriy Dashkevich, Ivan Shilo and Anastasiya Polozhanka have been banned from traveling abroad. Dashkevich was en route to a university in Vilnius February 2 when border guards removed him from the bus he was aboard. Shilo and Polozhanka were turned away at the border the same day. United Civic Party Chair Anatoliy Lebedko, who had been previously notified that he was not permitted to leave Belarus, was stopped at the border February 4 while traveling to Vilnius to meet with Lithuanian MPs. Lebedko's passport was stamped "exit forbidden" in poor Belarusian. ¶6. Protestants Protest Pressure from Authorities The Protestant New Life Church (NLC) community began a week of fast and prayers February 4 over what they call official "pressure" from the authorities. NLC lawyer Sergey Lukanin explained that prosecutors had been threatening NLC pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko with criminal prosecution and imprisonment after Goncharenko received a second warning February 5 for denying officials and fire inspectors access to the church building. Lukanin said the MINSK 00000091 002 OF 002 community will continue to deny officials access to its property until the Supreme Economic Court settles the dispute over the forced sale of NLC property. -------------- Domestic Economy -------------- ¶7. Foreign Debt Continues to Rise Belarus' Finance Ministry reported February 1 that the country's sovereign foreign debt as of January 1 was USD 2.337 billion, comprising 86.7 percent of total foreign debt. The foreign debt limit for 2008 was set at USD 4 billion. The country's internal debt increased by 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007. Under the law, the annual increase in the internal debt cannot be more than 3 percent of GDP. Belarus' national budget surplus in 2007 was 2.7 percent of the GDP. ¶8. Ministry Plans to Reduce Profitless Companies The Ministry of Industry announced plans February 7 to reduce the number of unprofitable enterprises to zero by the end of 2008. According to the ministry, currently about 14 percent of the industrial sector's enterprises, mainly small plants, subsidiary plants and food services enterprises, operated at a loss as of January 1, 2008. In order to reduce the number of unprofitable enterprises, the ministry plans to increase efficiency, reorganize enterprises, and merge unprofitable small enterprises into industrial associations. Industry Minister Anatol Rusetskiy stated that plans will begin with the "optimization" of the machine-tool industry and expand from there. -------------- International Trade -------------- ¶9. GOB Plans Five Billion kWh in Electricity Imports Vladimir Karduba, chief engineer with the Belarusian State Energy Concern Belenergo, reported February 7 that Belarus plans to import five billion kWh of electricity this year, noting that talks with potential suppliers in Ukraine and Russia are still in progress. According to Karduba, Belarus can generate a sufficient amount of electricity domestically, but the company plans to import more energy because the high cost of equipment maintenance makes domestic production more expensive than imports. According to the Ministry of Energy, the Belarusian power generation sector has a total capacity of more than 7,800 MWt, and consists of 25 power plants producing about 30 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. -------------- ¶10. Quote of the Week -------------- Lidiya Yermoshina, Chair of the Central Elections Committee, on why rigged elections are inconceivable in Belarus: "People here trust the figures presented by the Central Electoral Committee. Elections here cannot be falsified. If elections here were ever rigged, hundreds would take to the streets when they saw their votes did not correspond to the official totals." Stewart