A judge in Brest has imposed a fine of 285,000 Belarusian rubels (over $200) on Dmitry Shimansky, a local resident, for "activity on behalf of an
unregistered organization." Mr. Shimansky was charged after the newspaper Brestsky Kuryer had published his interview about Belarusian literature and history contests organized by his group called Dzedzich.
"In the interview I clearly said that the contests were organized by a group of people, not an organization, but the judge ruled that I should be punished under the Administrative Offenses Code," Mr. Shimansky told BelaPAN. He said that the regional Justice Department has been ignoring Dzedzich's applications for registration for 12 months. Mr. Shimansky intends to file an appeal with a higher court.
Belarus will neither build new installations on its Polish border, nor tear down the old ones, Aleksandr Pavlovsky, chairman of Belarus' State Border Troops Committee, told reporters following his May 23-24 talks in Brest with Marek Bienkowski, chief of Poland's Border Guard.
"Removing the polls and the barbed wire would take a great lot of money, so we just take them away them as they fall down," General Lieutenant Pavlovsky said. "We are against keeping such installations on the Belarusian-Polish border. We are neither building nor planning any on our Baltic and Ukrainian border."
"We inherited 400 kilometers of border installations from the Soviet Union, but it would be wrong to waste money on removing them," the general said. "Rebuilding the barriers or erecting new ones is not under discussion between us and our Polish colleagues, and we are not going to raise that issue in the near future. We have new means of fighting illegal migration."
Brigadier General Bienkowski said, "I assure you that we are not going to erect any walls and we are not going to build any new installations." When asked when Poland planned to introduce visas for Belarusians, Mr. Bienkowski said it was "the jurisdiction of the Polish government." It was the first meeting of the two countries' border chiefs since Poland joined NATO. "The Belarusian and Polish border authorities are against double standards and want the problems faced by both states to be solved," Mr. Pavlovsky said after he and General Bienkowski signed a final communique.
According to Mr. Pavlovsky, plans for this year include mutual assistance on law enforcement, meetings between Belarusian and Polish border officers working at the international airports of Minsk and Warsaw, and the fourth round of talks on a Belarusian-Polish border treaty. ("Belapan")
Vladimir Stepanov, deputy chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee and head of the Economy and Market Relations Committee within the Executive Committee, has handed in his resignation.
As Mr. Stepanov told BelaPAN, he can no longer bear the ostracism that he has been subject to ever since he decided to run in Belarus' recent parliamentary elections. He said that he was happy with his job with the regional government for years, but Vasily Dolgolyov, who was appointed to head the government in March 2000, brought "an authoritarian style that leaves no place for collective leadership."
According to Mr. Stepanov, the governor made it clear from the start that he did not want him elected to Parliament, setting off a smear campaign against Mr. Stepanov in the press and on local TV. "They were ordered to humiliate and discredit me. I has filed a libel suit," the deputy governor said. He voiced doubt that he really lost the elections to the Dolgolyov-favored candidate, Chief Health
Officer Valentina Kachan.
Mr. Stepanov plans to take a leave, then start looking for a new job. "In any event, I am not going to stay away from public life and business. I am getting a lot of offers, even from Russia," he said.
31 May 2001