Sergei Bakhun, chairman of the local chapter of Malady Front (youth organization associated with the Belarusian Popular Front), was released from jail on July 27 after he served a 10-day jail sentence for an
unauthorized demonstration staged on World Human Rights Day
last December.
For his part in that demonstration, Mr. Bakhun was ordered to pay a fine equal to about $600. After he refused, the judge ordered property to be seized from the apartment in which the defendant lived with his parents. The parents resisted the seizure, insisting that none of the property
belonged to their son. Finally, the judge opted for the 10-day jail sentence. Mr. Bakhun was taken to the detention center directly from the courtroom. He spent 9 days in the center because he was held a day in police custody after his arrest on December 10.
Mr. Bakhun told BelaPAN that he had lost 4.5 kilograms in nine days.
According to him, he was treated normally, but his cellmates were not "people with good manners." Mr. Bakhun said that the arrest did not change his views, and that he would continue his political activity.
Semyon Domash's supporters in the Brest region have urged him not to withdraw from the presidential race in favor of Vladimir Goncharik, chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, who has been named the opposition's single challenger to Aleksandr Lukashenko.
The appeal was issued on July 27 by Mr. Domash's support group that had collected voter signatures in the region for his registration as a presidential candidate. "Polls show that only both of them [Goncharik and Domash] can cover the whole electorate. The left and center-left
wings and a certain part of the Lukashenko electorate will vote for Goncharik. At the same time the nationally concerned patriots, the right wing, youths and provinces prefer Domash. Taking into account these circumstances, as well as the fact that only two democratic candidates remain of the five, we believe that we have no right to deprive people of a choice. Only together they can get popular support. This would be a courageous move on the part of both candidates."
Mr. Domash's support group collected 23,801 ballot access signatures in the Brest region while Mr. Goncharik's 26,135.
A fire, touched off by a lightning storm on the night of July 23, erased the 1809 wooden church in the village of Priborovo, Brest district, the press office of the Brest Regional Department for Emergency Situations,
told BelaPAN.
Six emergency and fire engines were sent to the scene, but they found ashes. The baptismal house next to the church building was not damaged. Witnesses say that the pastor rushed into the flaming temple and saved the Bible and a cross.
The Department for Emergency Situations reported seven lightning fires in the Brest region on the night of July 23. One of them destroyed an uninhabited house in the village of Bolshiye Sukharevichi.
The city government at a recent conference noted that 20.1 percent of Brest's 531 enterprises were operating at a loss, and 83 percent of the losers were non-state companies. About 27 percent of those operating at
a loss were industrial enterprises including big ones such as the Electric Bulb Factory, the Brest Electric Equipment Factory and the Household Chemicals Factory.
The average profitability of the local enterprises is quite low - 13.4 percent, while finished product inventories are the rise. Stockpiles of unsold goods at some factories exceed their monthly output several-fold.
Officials urged the Brest Non-Alcoholic Beverage Plant to achieve the targets for beer and fortified fruit wine production by the end of the year. Beer production in the first six months fell 16.9 percent and the output of
fortified and low-alcohol wines 71.6 percent short of expectations. As a result, the city budget fell short of 30 million rubels in revenues from excise duties. Revenues from the income tax, the value-added tax and the profit tax were also lower than expected.
Heavy thunderstorms disabled 20 power lines and 274 transformer substations in the districts of Brest, Kamenets and Malorita in southwestern Belarus on July 21 and 22, leaving 72 communities without electricity. The storm also caused telephone disruptions in 17
communities. Power and telephone communications are reported to have been restored to most towns and villages on July 23. Authorities are assessing the damage.
Two lives were claimed on July 15 in what authorities presume to have been a leak of natural gas in an apartment in Baranovichi, Brest region.
The 27-year-old unemployed owner of the apartment and his two visitors, whose identity remains unknown, were brought to the city hospital late on July 15. Two of them, including the apartment owner, died without regaining consciousness. The third man is in the resuscitation ward. The tragedy is being investigated by the Baranovichi branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Presumably, the
three men became poisoned as a result of a leak from a gas-fueled water heater in the apartment.Gas leak kills two in Baranovichi.
Five foreign nationals were arrested this week by the Belarusian border control authorities when they tried to enter Poland using forged passports, according to a press release of the Brest Border Control Group.
A citizen of Mongolia who had his photo pasted into someone else's passport was apprehended at the Tsentralny (Central) checkpoint in Brest. The Mongolian claimed to have paid $1,000 for the passport.
Three Moldovan nationals were detained at the Varshavsky Most (Warsaw Bridge) checkpoint after they produced forged passports.
A citizen of Armenia was caught under similar circumstances. The Armenian said that he had paid $2,000 for his fake passport. All the illegal aliens have been deported from Belarus.
Since the beginning of 2001, border guards in the Brest region are reported to have detained a total of 150 people who attempted to cross the border illegally.
Prosecutors in Kobrin, Brest region, have criminal proceedings in connection with the July 8 apartment balcony crash, in which two people were killed and five were seriously injured.
The prosecutors are trying to find out whether the housing maintenance services neglected their duties. Experts of the Ministry of Architecture and Construction and the chief of the regional Construction Supervision
Department examined the building on July 9. They are expected to present their conclusions by the end of the week. The experts suspect that standards were not met when the balcony was built. The house has not seen major repairs for 34 years.
The Kobrin housing authorities have recommended that the residents of the houses constructed 30 to 40 years ago stay off their balconies until their examination by experts.
"What I saw here proves the kinship of our peoples. We have a common future and should tackle problems together. There is no other way for us," Vladimir Rushailo, secretary of Russia's Security Council, said on July 10 while visiting Brest, a Belarusian city on the Polish
border.
Following his talks with Brest's executive and law enforcement officials, Mr. Rushailo spent about two hours at the Brest Fortress, the Red Army's stronghold against the Germans in 1941. He visited the museum, the forts, and the ruins of the garrison church. He told reporters he had never before been in Brest.
Mr. Rushailo's talks with Vasily Dolgolyov, chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee, are said to have had much to do with the situation along the Belarusian-Polish border. The Brest governor is quoted reminding Mr. Rushailo of Poland's anticipated entry to NATO as a source of a whole range of collective security issues. Mr. Rushailo said that he was staying in Belarus on a commission from President Vladimir Putin. On July 11 and 12, he is scheduled to meet in Minsk with the head of state, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and some other top Belarusian officials. "We will spend the next two days at a round
table, discussing military and economic security, and some other issues," Mr. Rushailo said. Mr. Rushailo praised law enforcement cooperation within the CIS. "We are working on multilateral level within the CIS Councils of Interior Ministers, Security Chiefs, and Defense Ministers," he said. "A whole range of serious issues are addressed there. Besides, we do a lot on expert level within the Security Councils. The Security Council secretaries hold regular meetings. My visit will include a series of working meetings in Minsk. This shows that we
constantly work together."
The Brest Regional Executive Committee has decided to carry out its structural reorganization, which would include the abolition of the Trade Directorate, the Department on Religious and National Affairs, and the
Directorate on Information and Social Relations. The latter directorate would become a department subordinate to the Press Directorate. The Trade Directorate would be a unit within the Industry Directorate. Leonid Tsuprik, deputy chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee for
ideology, would be responsible for the matters that are now handled by the Department on Religious and National Affairs. As Aleksandr Koleda, chief of the Organizational and Personnel Department, explained to BelaPAN, "reappointments and internal reshuffle" will take place in July and August. Mr. Koleda said that this was a local initiative and there
had not been any orders from the central government in this regard. "The number of employees will remain the same, as the staff will be neither reduced nor increased," Mr. Koleda added. However, the planned reorganization aroused discontent among workers of the departments that are to be abolished. They insist that the staff will be cut. It is also rumored in Brest that some reshuffle will occur
in the City and Regional Executive Committees. For instance, Georgy Kozel, the local government's business manager, is rumored to replace Gennady Mosko in the post of chairman of the Brest City Executive Committee. Employees of the Regional Executive Committee say that the head of the regional government, Vasily Dolgolyov, may be brought
back to Minsk and Nikolai Gordiyevich, first deputy chairman of the Regional Executive Committee, would take his place. Mr. Koleda did not confirm these rumors. During his recent visit to Brest, Aleksandr Lukashenko said that he did not intend to change the head of the Brest
regional government.b
27 July 2001