State-run farms in the Brest region, in the southwest of Belarus, repay their long-overdue wage arrears to farmers in kind through local stores.
Twenty-three farms in the Pinsk district owe their personnel a total of 1.3 billion rubels ($684,000) in August's, July's, and June's wages. Seven farms in the neighboring Luninets district owe their workers 1.7
billion, or $895,000. To fulfil the government's order to clear wage debts before December, farms have been concluding offset deals with local stores to pay their workers with food and non-food products.
Locals have used their chance to snap up all available household equipment and furniture from the stores. Over the last ten days, the Pinsk district consumer society distributed more than 200 million rubels worth of merchandize to farmers. November's "sales" are expected to
amount to 540 million rubels, or $284,000, and an even higher figure is projected for December.
The Brest customs department has launched criminal proceedings against a citizen of Russia who attempted to smuggle foreign currency across the Belarusian-Polish border, the press office of the State
Customs Committee (SCC) told BelaPAN.
On November 24, the Russian man, travelling by a Moscow-Warsaw train, tried to smuggle EUR 19,000, $4,800 and 55 Ukrainian hrivnias in the total amount of 45.227 million rubels, hiding the money in his bag, the SCC press office said. Customs officers, however, discovered the
money and arrested the man. Under the Criminal Code, the Russian may be fined or sentenced to "restricted freedom" or imprisonment for up to 5 years.
Retired army servicemen in Brest are still opposed to the planned closure of the city's military hospital despite the authorities promise to transfer patients to other health establishments and employ the
hospital's 300 personnel.
The defense ministry announced the decision to close down the hospital this winter saying it had no funds to pay for services to 4,000 inpatients and some 30,000 outpatients annually. The decision angered the hospital's patients and staff who filed petitions with the defense ministry and Aleksandr Lukashenko's Presidential Administration. "Over the ten months of 2002 more than 3,500 people, including 1,700 draftees and 462 retired servicemen underwent treatment in the hospital. We, veterans, are afraid that we will not get the same care as here in the
city's medical institutions," retired Colonel Yevgeny Fedosenko told BelaPAN. As soon as the decision to close the hospital is officially
adopted, the hospital facilities will be reorganized, said Leonid Tsuprik, deputy chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee. The building will house a cardiology clinic, a first aid station and the regional
psycho-neurological clinic. Last week, Health Minister Lyudmila Postoyalko and Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev visited the hospital and announced that the hospital facilities and equipment will be handed
over to the regional healthcare department, Mr. Tsuprik noted.
Truck drivers on November 24 blocked traffic for an hour and a half on the Brest-Minsk highway near the village Khaby in the Brest district to urge customs officers at the Zadvortsy checkpoint to speed their work.
The spontaneous protest burst out, as the line of truck-trailers waiting for their turn to be inspected at the checkpoint was up to 15 kilometers long, and drivers had to wait for more than 24 hours to cross the border into Poland.
As an officer with the Brest regional police department told BelaPAN, Vladimir Shafarenko, chief of the department and officials of the regional road police and the Zapadny Bug customs house checkpoint visited the scene and managed to persuade the drivers to clear the road.
Commenting on the situation an official with the Zapadny Bug customs house insisted that they should not be blamed for the long line. He said that customs inspectors had worked in a usual mode, and that 286 vehicles had been passed during the last shift instead of a usual 250. Long truck lines are typical for the end of a year, as many
companies hurry to fulfill their contractual commitments, which results in more trucks crossing the border, the official explained. It is now impossible to increase the capacity of customs checkpoints, he added.
Belarusian customs officers tend to put part of the blame for the slow pace of customs examination on their Polish colleagues, who have recently begun to inspect cargo vehicles more thoroughly, which leads to a slower inspection pace.
The regional police department denied the protesters' allegation that some vehicles, with the help of police officers, had crossed the border bypassing the line. The drivers also complained that they could not see any roadside cafes, hotels and comfortable toilets within a distance of 15 kilometers from the checkpoint, although all drivers crossing the border are required to pay environmental and other local duties that were said to be spent for developing roadside services.
The situation in Brest, connected with the return of the Russian citizens of the Chechen nationality by the Polish border guards, was normalized, senior officer of the Brest border-group press-service Dmitriy Devyatov told a BelTA correspondent. From November 15 to November 18 practically all Chechens who were forced to stay in Brest, crossed the Belarusian-Polish border. Efficient and strict position of the Belarusian leadership and the measures undertaken by it helped to settle the problem.
According to the preliminary operational information, none of the Chechens were refused entering Poland, what confirms again that their documents were correctly drawn up. Though the Polish side used to state that the problem of documents was the main reason for the refusal. According to Dmitriy Devyatov, now border guards are normally working at the border checkpoints.
On November 19, film by director Nikolai Zaseev-Rudenko “Black Rada” opened the days of the Ukrainian cinema in Brest. A meeting with the Ukrainian films was organized by the culture department of the Brest oblast executive committee, the oblast film and video association and the Ukraine consulate general in Brest.
As a correspondent of BelTA was informed, the Brest viewers will see the best Ukrainian films of the last years which were created by the Odessa film studio and the studio named after Dovzhenko. These are films “Secondary people” by Kira Muratova, the sequel of the famous animated cartoon film “How the Cossacks play football”. In general the program will include 4 feature films and 8 animated cartoon films.
The Brest region government will put up its shares in 20 enterprises for an auction on November 19. The lots include the Pinsk and Ivatsevichi Flax Mills and the Beryoza Engine Repair Factory.
On the same day, the regional government will be selling at competition shares in a car repair shop in Stolin, a canned food factory in Zagorsk, a Brest-based garment factory and a Kobrin-based furniture factory. These enterprises are reported to be facing severe shortages of working capital and need investment.
The regional government plans to auction off 24 enterprises this year. Half of them are located in the Free Economic Zone "Brest".
Polish border guards let about 60 ethnic Chechens to cross into the country over the last two days defusing tensions with Belarus over what it regarded as unlawful denials of entry.
Since October 26, Polish border guards turned back about 300 Russians, mostly ethnic Chechens traveling from Russia to Poland. Some of them returned to Russia while others rented apartments in Brest.
On November 15, 17 ethnic Chechens, accompanied by Polish television journalists, were allowed to travel to Poland. Eleven people were let into Poland on the next day, and 30 others, mostly women and children, on November 16. The police said that a small number of ethnic Chechens currently staying in Brest are expected to leave for Poland within the next few days.
Polish border guards on November 15 allowed two Chechen families to enter Poland. The two families, which consisted of 17 people - 12 adults
and 5 children - had been previously turned back on the grounds of Poland's 1997 law that allowed the authorities to bar out undesirable persons.
The families were accompanied by a crew of Poland's TVP1 channel, which had arrived in Brest by permission of the Belarusian authorities. It was the Polish journalists who suggested that the families make another attempt to cross the border in order to find out whether they would be admitted this time and cover the event, Dmitry Devyatov,
press secretary of the Brest Border Control Unit, told BelaPAN. Representatives of Belarusian and Russian media outlets, as well as officials of Russia's Consulate General also traveled with the Chechens. Belarusian border guards helped the families buy tickets to a local train from Brest to Poland's border town of Terespol and even delayed its
departure by fifteen minutes so that the Chechens could catch it.
In Terespol, the families were met by the local post executive. They were given a hot meal and necessary medicines. The families applied for political asylum. The application is to be considered in Warsaw where they will be taken within the next few days.
This was the first admission of Chechen migrants into Poland in more than three weeks, observers in Brest say. The Polish authorities began to turn back Chechens and other people from Russia's Caucasian region on October 26 following the hostage-taking in Moscow. According to the Brest border control authorities, as of November 14, 285 people, most of them being Russian Chechens, were not
allowed to enter Poland.
Many of the "refuseniks" still stay in Brest, hoping that they will soon be allowed to cross the border into Poland. Most of them have not registered with the local police thus breaking Belarus' regulations of foreigners' stay in the country. On Friday, police officers visited Chechens who rented lodging in Brest to warn them that they would be
fined for their failure to register. However, most of the Chechen migrants do not have money to pay the fines, Arkady Kostyuchik, a departmental chief with the local police, told BelaPAN. Under Belarus' regulations, foreigners who commit an administrative offense may be expelled from
Belarus, but the government would have to pay their fares to travel back to Russia. The Belarusian authorities hope that the Russian Embassy in Minsk and the Russian Consulate General in Brest will manage to resolve the problem and the Chechens will leave Brest, Mr. Kostyuchik said.
Aleksandr Lukashenko gave a name to a Chechen girl born a few days ago in Brest, after her parents were denied entry to Poland. The Belarusian ruler named her Alesya.
The Tazurkayevs traveled to the West to give birth to the child there. Since they were turned back by the Polish border control authorities, the girl was born in a maternity hospital in Brest. Under a Chechen tradition, older members of the family were to have named the child,
but since they were absent, the girl's parents asked in an interview broadcast by Belarusian Television that the Belarusian ruler name their child. Mr. Lukashenko responded to the request.
On November 14, Nina Shpak, chief of the Information Department of the Brest Regional Executive Committee, handed the Tazurkayevs a present, flowers and an amount of money equal to the monthly pay of Mr. Lukashenko. The girl is to be registered at Russia's Consulate General in Brest and supplied with all necessary documents on Friday.
Meanwhile, more than 200 Chechens still stay in Brest waiting for an opportunity to travel to the West. The Consulate General is making everything possible to settle the matter, Russian diplomat Vladimir Burakov said.
29 November 2002