The EU Dilemma: What Kind of Dialogue with Belarus? More Active Engagement with Society and Increased Pressure on the Regime Report of the Working Group on Investments of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus May 2013 © Working Group on Investments of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, May 2013 2 CONTENTS Introduction 5 Executive Summary 7 1. Human Rights and Civil Society in Continued Decline 1.1 Overall picture: As bad as it was, and getting worse 11 1.2. Increased pressure on political prisoners 11 1.3. Harassment of human rights defenders and NGOs 12 1.4. The state of fear 13 1.5. The regime’s lack of cooperation with international organisations 14 1.6. Proponents of “dialogue” 14 1.7. The attitude of Belarusians to the authorities, the EU and Russia 15 2. Politics and Economics: Lukashenka Continues to Successfully Deceive Both the West and Russia 2.1. European Union sanctions: Why haven’t they been fully effective? 17 2.2. Growing revenue through Belarus’ trade in European markets 19 2.3. Lukashenka and Russia: A game of cat and mouse on the Eastern front 21 2.4. The China option: No such thing as a free lunch 24 2.5. What to expect in 2013: A new round of “partnership” with the West? 24 2.6. The dialogue game: Will the EU elect Lukashenka for a new term? 27 3. Strategy Recommendations for the International Community 3.1. Overcome “European fatigue” 29 3.2. Principles that should underlie the international community's strategies 29 1. Strategies should be driven by the goal of attaining systemic change 2. Strategies must be truly long-term and consistent 3. The international community must be proactive 4. The members of the European Union must take a unified stance 3.3. Actively engage Belarusian society: Promote the “European choice” 30 1. Develop and implement an effective communications strategy 2. Expand opportunities for Belarusians to travel to the EU 3. Increase support to independent civil society 4. Increase financial support for persecuted activists and their families 3.4. Increase pressure on the regime: Act consistently and smartly 31 Annexes 1. The Justas Paleckis report: commentaries on the potential positive and negative consequences 33 of its recommendations 2. Sanctions and the various sectors and actors of the Belarusian economy 37 Banks and sanctions Oligarch Yuri Chizh gets his business out from under sanctions Oligarch Anatoly Ternavsky has been barred from seeking redress through EU Courts in resolving corporate disputes 3. The most profitable companies established with Belarusian capital 39 4. Oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev: Lukashenka’s best “British” friend 41 5. Oligarch Nikolay Vorobey: Lukashenka’s new “wallet” 45 6. Public opinion surveys measuring Belarusians’ attitudes toward the government, the EU, and Russia 47 7. Statistical graphs showing Belarus' foreign trade 51 Bibliography 55 3 4 INTRODUCTION This report has been prepared by the Working Group on Investments of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus based on a study of open sources, official documents, analytical studies, and interviews with Belarusian and international experts in economics and the social sciences, and civil society activists between July 2012 and May 2013. The report aims to inform stakeholders and decision-makers on the current political, economic, social, and human rights situation in Belarus and offer the international community recommendations for action that may facilitate improvement of the human rights situation and pave the way toward a democratic transition in Belarus. The Committee on International Control was set up within days of the violent dispersal in Minsk of a peaceful protest against the rigged presidential election on 19 December 2010. Currently, the Committee has a membership of more than 50 nongovernmental organisations from more than 15 countries worldwide. For a long time after the December 2010 events, the Committee was the only international human rights group with a permanent presence in Belarus, represented by its International Observation Mission. The Committee conducts monitoring of the situation with fundamental human rights and the situation of nongovernmental organisations, human rights defenders, journalists, and lawyers in Belarus. It also prepares and circulates reports and makes recommendations to civil society, governments, and the international community with the ultimate goal of aligning the situation in Belarus with the country's international obligations. The Working Group on Investments of the Committee on International Control conducts analysis of the economic and political situation in Belarus in the context of human rights and the rule of law, develops recommendations on the application of legal, economic and political instruments to influence the situation in the country, and interacts with civil society organisations, research institutes, governments, and international organisations, including the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU. This report summing up the developments in and around Belarus in 2012 and the first quarter of 2013 represents a follow up to two previous reports by the Working Group, released in September 2011 and January 2012. The authors would like to thank the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) for many years of partnership and highly appreciated support in the production of this report. The Civic Solidarity Platform has provided key support and inspiration for our work for which we are very grateful. We extend our sincere gratitude to our colleagues on the Committee for International Control as well as many partners and interlocutors in international organisations and last, but not least, courageous Belarusian democratic and civic activists and human rights defenders, journalists, and researchers for their ideas, stimulating discussions, and their inspiring struggles for a better future for their country. 5 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The current situation with human rights and civil society in Belarus is not merely continuing to be as bad as it was in 2011: it continues to steadily deteriorate. Belarus still incarcerates a dozen political prisoners, including a former presidential candidate, the leader of a human rights movement and a youth leader. In late 2012 and early 2013, the regime dramatically increased physical and psychological pressure on the political prisoners, attempting to force them to acknowledge their guilt and ask for presidential pardons. Limited access to lawyers, with meetings taking place in the presence of guards, denies these prisoners the ability to safely transmit information about their harassment to the outside world. Torture in the prison system; harassment of civic activists, journalists and lawyers; arbitrary detention and beatings of protesters by uniformed and plain-clothed police; the impunity of law enforcement officers who commit human rights abuses; the systemic restriction of the freedoms of assembly, association and expression, including internet freedom, and much more are all routine practice in Belarus today. All this has created a prevailing atmosphere of fear in the country. One should not forget that Belarus remains the only European country that continues to execute people – a practice that it continued to pursue in 2012. Belarusian government's attitude toward cooperation with international organisations in the area of human rights is revealing. Throughout 2012 the Belarusian Foreign Ministry repeatedly stressed that Belarus would not communicate with the UN Human Rights Committee on individual complaints of Belarusian citizens. Not a single Human Rights Committee opinion on individual complaints from Belarus has been implemented by the authorities. The non-cooperation of Minsk with the UN was further sharply exhibited upon the creation of the special rapporteur on Belarus by the Human Rights Council resolution of 5 July 2012. In response to this resolution, Minsk stated that it did not recognize the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur. Nothing has been done by the regime to investigate or rectify the repression perpetrated on Minsk Square on 19 December 2010 and afterwards. None of the recommendations made by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights report, UN treaty bodies, or the OSCE Moscow Mechanism Report – addressing both the systemic, long-term human rights problems in Belarus and post- presidential election crackdown – have been implemented in 2012 or early 2013. In March 2012 the EU adopted targeted restrictive economic measures against a number of companies belonging to businessmen close to Lukashenka. There is no doubt that the sanctions, combined with the threat that they could be expanded, led directly to the release of two prominent political prisoners: former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and his close associate Dmitri Bondarenko. In 2012 the EU had the opportunity to achieve the release of all political prisoners. This was possible only if the international community did not fall for Lukashenka's vague promises of cooperation in the future and continued its pressure on the regime, expanding sensible economic sanctions targeted at oligarchs close to the government, thus undermining Lukashenka's ability to sustain repression and weakening his economic base. Unfortunately, these opportunities were missed in 2012 for two reasons. First of all, from the start, the economic sanctions were extremely limited and therefore ineffective. In the spring of 2012, Lukashenka's lobbyists in Europe were able to arrange to exclude from the EU sanction list a few key companies involved in the petroleum trade belonging to one of the key “wallets” of Lukashenka, oligarch Yuri Chizh. As a result, throughout 2012 the regime continued to make good money by selling petroleum products to the EU and even increased its earnings from foreign trade. 7 Second, in 2012 the regime succeeded in implementing a profitable scheme involving petrol and oil products purchased at a discount from Russia. Oil products were then resold to the EU labelled as solvents and thinners after paying Russia low customs duties.