Some Brest region-based signature collectors for Vladimir Goncharik, leader of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, have quit, citing pressure, Mr. Goncharik's campaign coordinator in Brest, Anatoly
Levkovich, told BelaPAN.
"Those people had sent us applications to participate in the campaign. They are now withdrawing, citing pressure. They do not say who is putting pressure on them," Mr. Levkovich said. According to him, Mr. Goncharik's support group in the Brest region has about 700 members, and the withdrawals cannot seriously affect the union boss's campaign.
"We already have 6,000 signatures for Goncharik. It took us a week to collect them. And we still have plenty of time," Mr. Levkovich said. Like other bidders for the Belarusian presidency in this fall's elections Mr. Goncharik needs to gather at least 100,000 voter signatures by July 20 to get on the ballot.
Yegor Vershilo, a signature collector for Semyon Domash, has filed a complaint with the interdistrict public prosecutor in Kobrin, Brest region, demanding punishment for the local police officers who he says
hindered him in gathering signatures to nominate Mr. Domash for President in this fall's election.
According to Mr. Vershilo, a police officer, who did not bother to introduce himself, detained him on June 25 for standing on a street with a sign carrying a photo of the opposition candidate and saying "Dear voters! Here you can leave your signature to nominate S. Domash for President!" Mr. Vershilo says it was the photo that the policeman did
not like, taking it as propaganda for a candidate ahead of registration. When brought to a police station, Mr. Vershilo demanded that his arrest and the seizure of his sign be properly documented. "Using foul language, the duty officer told me to get out and to never again show up in the city with signs like that," Mr. Vershilo told BelaPAN.
"The police in Kobrin either are unaware of or consciously ignore administrative and electoral regulations. They are either unable or unwilling to be civil to citizens, and they are confident they can get away with it," Mr. Vershilo said. According to him, he was told at the prosecutor's office that his complaint would be given proper consideration
About 70 history teachers from schools and universities in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine took part in an international seminar in Brest from June 21 to 24 dedicated to teaching lessons of Holocaust.
Taking part were World War II veterans, former Brest Ghetto prisoners, and schoolchildren from the three countries who won competitions for the best Holocaust study. The seminar has been organized by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Foundation, Russia's Holocaust foundation and the Brest-based Holocaust Education Center. Addressing the seminar participants, Ety Katzir-Kaslasy, counsellor and consul of the Israeli embassy in Minsk, said that Brest hosted the seminar because it fought the first battle against the Nazis when Germany invaded the Soviet Union 60 years ago.
"Today we face the challenge of teaching the next generation the facts and the lessons of the Holocaust. We must teach the facts, lest they be forgotten or worse, distorted by so called 'revisionist historians' who engage in the most monstrous perversion of their profession," Ms.
Katzir-Kaslasy said. One of the main lessons of the Holocaust is that no
society, no matter how technologically advanced, no matter how cultured, is immune from degenerating into murderous violence, which is fed by ethnic hatred, she said.
Ms. Katzir-Kaslasy recalled that on June 11 the memorial dedicated to the Martyrs of the Ghetto in Brest was shamefully desecrated by swastika and anti-Semitic slogans. Holocaust seminars will be organized in Belarus on a regular basis, Svetlana Mashchenko, an employee of the Israeli embassy's information service, told BelaPAN. She said that a Holocaust course would soon be included in school curricular in Russia. A similar course is being prepared in Belarus and the Israeli embassy offers its assistance to any initiatives in this direction, Ms. Mashchenko said.
An apartment in Stolin, Brest region, housing a local group collecting signatures to enable Semyon Domash to run for President in this fall's election was searched by police on June 22, an independent election
observer, Inna Apanasenko, told BelaPAN.
According to Ms. Apanasenko, the officers entered the apartment, owned by Denis Marchenko, saying their visit was about the disappearance of Mr. Marchenko's father five years ago. Instead, they reportedly searched the apartment, seizing a computer, a printer, a fax/modem, computer disks and drivers, as well as signature collector lists.
Viktor Prokopchik was arrested by police in Drogichin on June 23 while collecting signatures for the opposition candidate, Ms. Apanasenko said. According to her, Mr. Prokopchik was taken to a police station, then released without any charges being filed. Yegor Vershilo was reportedly arrested as an illegal demonstrator for standing on a street in Kobrin on June 25 with a sign saying "Dear voters! Here you can leave your signature to nominate S. Domash for President!" Mr. Vershilo was released after about 15 minutes, according to Ms. Apanasenko.
"I did not expect to find so many problems in Brest's industry," Belarus' chief of state, Aleksandr Lukashenko, said during his visit to Brest on June 25 after meeting managers of local industrial enterprises.
He threatened to sack the industry minister and the Brest Electrical Equipment Factory director if the latter fails to raise wages and create new jobs before the end of the year. Mr. Lukashenko said that Brest's hosiery factory and the Kovry Bresta carpet maker could have performed better. He noted welcome trends in the performance of the Tsvetotron electronic factory and the Electric Bulb Factory, which he visited after seeing an exhibition of the city's industrial products.
The Electric Bulb Factory manufactures bulbs, car lights, halogen lamps, light-diffusing screens and luminaires. The factory sells its products to the Baltics, Russia and Ukraine. Its output rose 14.7 percent and exports 62.5 percent to $1.8 million in the first four months of the year compared with the same period in 2000. Mr. Lukashenko said the government would give the Electric Bulb Factory loans for modernization.
The official unemployment rate in Brest is likely to rise sharply after Poland introduces visa requirements for Belarus, an official of the Brest
Employment Center told BelaPAN.
About 3,000 people, or just 1.5 percent of Brest's labor force, are officially registered as unemployed. Most of them are youths under 30. Brest has had for a long time the lowest official unemployment rate among the regional centers in Belarus, but experts say that the real
unemployment rate is quite high. Thousands of Brest residents earn their living by selling cigarettes and alcohol in Poland. Some of them manage to make several trips to Poland a day, making $10-15. The planned introduction of visa requirements is expected to drive border shuttle traders out of the business and force them to apply to the employment center. The need to have a visa to enter Poland may also increase social tensions at local enterprises. To avoid layoffs, many factories in Brest send workers on leave without pay. These workers, as well as many teachers, rely on border trade for living. The city authorities told BelaPAN that they did not plan any special measures to ease possible social tensions after the introduction of visa requirements.
On June 24, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church consecrated the Holy Resurrection Church built in Brest at the Belarusian government's expense in honor of the Soviet victory over the Nazis. "This church is a worthy monument to the feat of Great Victory," Aleksy II said after the
ceremony.
Mr. Lukashenko, who accompanied the patriarch, praised the church as "the most magnificent of all churches built over the years since you entrusted me with governing this country," as "the greatest gift from our government to our people." "Let this church be a symbol of unity between the peoples of Russia and Belarus, as well as among all the
peoples of what was once a great power," he said. On the same day, Aleksy II consecrated the St. Nicholas Church at the Brest Fortress, the Red Army's stronghold against the Nazis in June 1941. The 19th century cathedral did not survive the siege. Its ruins are now part of a
memorial that opened at the fortress in the early 70s. It was not until 1994 that the cathedral was handed over to the Orthodox Church.
"This church is unique. It deserves better. It must be rebuilt as soon as possible," Mr. Lukashenko said after the ceremony. He promised that "whatever lies ahead" for him he would accompany Aleksy II on the patriarch's first visit to the cathedral after its reconstruction. It remained unclear if he meant that the Belarusian government would pay for
the cathedral to be restored.
The famous six-armed golden cross, which was presented by the Belarusian saint to Polotsk's Church of Holy Savior in 1161, tracelessly disappeared during World War II, was remade in 1997 by Brest-based craftsman Nikolai Kuzmich. The copy, richly decorated with enamels and precious stones, was transported from Polotsk to Brest on the occasion of the patriarch's visit.
Aleksy II sanctified with the cross all those who were present in the church and outside. Then the cross was publicly exhibited and everybody could come up and kiss it. On the first day of his stay in the Brest region, the patriarch also honored the memory of Archbishop of Brest and Kobrin Konstantin, who died in 2000. Aleksy II read a prayer at his grave in the church yard. The new head of the Brest and Kobrin Eparchy, the Rev. Sofrony, presented an icon to the patriarch.
During a dinner in honor of the patriarch, the Brest regional government presented Aleksy II with a pectoral cross, also made by Mr. Kuzmich.
On behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church, Aleksy II awarded the Reverend Sergy Radonezhsky Order to Valery Moroz, an officer of the Brest Department of Belarus' Committee for State Security (KGB), for coordinating the guarding of the Cross of St. Euphrosyne.
On the afternoon of June 23, Aleksy II visited the St. Nicholas Church and consecrated the church's recently built Sunday school.
The patriarch honored the memory of the Rev. Mikhail Satsyuk, the church's minister who was killed in 1998.
Aleksandr Lukashenko is to stay in Brest on June 24 and 25. The main objectives of the visit are participation in ceremonies on the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union (the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War) and inspections of a number of industrial enterprises and the Free Trade Zone "Brest," the Belarusian ruler's press office reported.
On June 24, Mr. Lukashenko is to hold a meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksy II in the Christ Resurrection Memorial Temple in commemoration of the May 9, 1945 victory in the Great Patriotic War. Mr. Lukashenko and Aleksy II are to visit the "To the Border Guards" memorial complex.
Sunday's central event will be the participation of Mr. Lukashenko and Aleksy II in a commemorative ceremony on the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, according to the Belarusian ruler's press office. After laying wreaths on graves of Brest Fortress defenders,
Mr. Lukashenko and Patriarch Aleksy II are to visit the St. Nicholas Church and to meet with members of the Belarusian Orthodox Church Synod. On June 25, Monday, the Belarusian ruler will reportedly
study the situation in the Brest industrial sector. Local government officials are to brief him on the social and economic situation in the region. On the same day, Mr. Lukashenko is to visit the state-owned electric bulb factory where he is to see an exhibition of the local
industrial sector's products. The heads of Brest's electrical equipment factory, the local engineering plant and automobile repair works, the Belarusian-Russian gas equipment plant and the joint-stock Kovry Bresta carpet company are to report to the head of state on their
achievements and problems. At the same electric bulb factory, Mr. Lukashenko is scheduled to meet with "representatives of workers' collectives." At the end of his stay in Brest, the Belarusian ruler is
expected to visit the local Free Economic Zone.
Army General Oleksandr Kuzmuk, Ukraine's defense minister, will arrive in Belarus on June 23 for a three-day visit, according to the press office of the Belarusian defense ministry. On the same day he will hold
face-to-face talks with his Belarusian counterpart, General Lieutenant Leonid Maltsev, in Brest. Later in the day, delegations of the two defense ministries will meet to discuss cooperation.
The Belarusian and Ukrainian defense ministers are expected to take part in a ceremony of laying flowers at a monument to the Brest Fortress defenders together with Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Aleksy II. They will also visit the St. Nicholas church in the Brest Fortress Memorial. On the last day of the visit, the Ukrainian delegation will visit the 6th Detached Mechanized Brigade in Grodno.
29 June 2001