Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-14-Speech-2-028"
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"en.20040914.3.2-028"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on Belarus has, yet again, been characterised more by despair than by hope. As Mr Wiersma said, it has been like that for years.
Although we have been keeping our eye on Belarus for years, it is one of the reunited Europe’s failures that we have not been able to prevent a dictatorship of dark and Stalinist stamp on its own doorstep. Contrary to what the President of Belarus says on his country’s television networks, which all toe the party line, his power brings the people no security, but rather fear and terror. He rules through state-sponsored contract-killers and by using strong-arm tactics such as those of silencing all opposition, criminalising commitment to civil society, and banning the free expression of opinion. The list could be made much longer, as you know. It will be very difficult for Belarus to find its way back to democracy, and it is in that light that the referendum should be seen. In order to keep his hands on his personal power, he chose the day of the parliamentary elections, the day when democracy could have returned to the country, to demand a vote of confidence in him, as a distraction from the real issues, the real questions that the people are asking, as to why things are getting worse and worse while the situation in the neighbouring countries is improving, why it is that they cannot share in the neighbouring states’ prosperity, why the consequences of Chernobyl are denied, why aid projects are banned, why health care is being cut back and why experts collecting data to enable help to be given are put behind bars. Even eighteen years after the event, Chernobyl’s consequences have not been dealt with and many of the people are exposed to radioactive contamination.
I now turn to the dictator Lukashenko’s latest action, the shutting-down of the humanist university in Minsk. It was the last university to maintain and teach liberal and European values, and it was closed down in the teeth of opposition from the students and the people. For that reason, we must not be silent; we must protest, for this is yet another course of action driving the genuinely pro-European elite out of the country.
I have to say, Commissioner – and this is where I agree with the first speaker – that the European Union is open to the accusation of not having done enough to drag Belarus out of the black hole of self-isolation, and we know why; our instruments are inadequate. Even the new instruments that you are proposing as part of the Neighbourhood Policy are nothing like enough to deal with this special problem. You have ignored Parliament’s proposals for setting up special programmes for this with other options and financed in other ways, enabling us at last to take the action that is urgently needed, such as, for example, the development of civil society and the strengthening of a free press.
Last of all, let me mention my friend – my best friend in Belarus – Viktor Gonchar, who, as you all know, was one of the victims of the contract killers. While I believe that we should do more to get the murderers punished and his death fearlessly investigated, we should also carry forward his vision of a democratic Belarus, one that allows its people to share in Europe’s progress and prosperity."@en1
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