Office for a Democratic Belarus Belarus Headlines Issue XLI May 26, 2009 Conference on the Role of Civil Society Groups and Local Authorities in Promotion of More Equitable, Open and Democratic Society in Belarus Relations De- cooperation with local au- partment Ste- thorities impossible; the fania Toriello, pressure put on civil society UNDP Resident activists, economic barriers Representative for NGOs activities. In par- in Belarus An- ticular, the speakers noted tonius Broek, that the existing regulations Office for a Democratic INGO confer- put civil society and busi- Belarus ence of the ness groups on the same Council of shelf in terms of office rent, Europe rappor- legal address, etc. At the Inside this issue: On May 25-27, 2009 the As- teur Cyril Ritchie, and Direc- same time, they mentioned sociation of the Local De- tor of the Brussels-based Of- that the space for coopera- Conference on 1 mocracy Agencies (ALDA), fice for a Democratic Belarus tion has been slightly widen- Belarusian civil Lev Sapieha Foundation Olga Stuzhinskaya. ing. society role in (Belarus), and the Municipal- promoting the ity of Monfalcone (Italy) or- The speakers and ganized an international con- the audience Millennium goals ference ‘The Millennium De- stressed the lack opens in Brussels velopment Goals and the state of knowledge on of art in Belarus. The role of the potential role initiatives from civil society of non state ac- Summary of the and local authorities in order tors and local news (April 27— to promote a more equitable, authorities in May 27, 2009) open and democratic society’. providing sus- tainable develop- The conference is part of the ment in Belarus EU and Belarus 2-3 REACT Project (Reinforcing as well as the lack of commu- The representatives of Bela- Actions of capacity building nication between them. rusian NGOs also explained for civil society), which aims During the discussions the that the system of power in Politics and 5-6 at strengthening the role of participants stressed the need Belarus is highly central- Society non-state actors and local for building up specific skills ized. The local authorities authorities in the field of pov- and capacities of civil society have no need to create a Finance and 7 erty reduction in the context organizations as independent positive image among the Economics of sustainable development, and autonomous structures population as their success according to Millennium De- that can voice the concerns of does not depend on voters velopment Goals and other communities and citizens and but on their superiors. One internationally agreed devel- improve the quality of con- participant stressed that it is FeminEAST 7-10 opment targets. crete actions at local level. of greatest importance to writer Maryia convince the local officials Martysevich The speakers included ALDA Belarusian speakers men- that cooperation with the President Per Vinther, Lev tioned the main problems most active part of society interview Sapieha Foundation Chair- NGOs in Belarus face in their represented by NGOs’ activ- man of the Board Miraslau everyday work. These include ists is of mutual benefit to Kobasa, Chief of the Mayor denials of projects’ registra- all. We on the Web Cabinet of the Municipality tion, NGOs’ negative image of Monfalcone Lucio Gregor- in state-run mass media – the 26/05/2009 www.democraticbelarus.eu etti, ALDA’s head of External issue that often makes their Source: ODB PAGE 2 BELARUS HEADLINES ISSUE XLI EU and Belarus Belarusian President Visits Italy, Meets Pope and Berlusconi On April 27, Belarusian President shenka's audience with the Pope went Alyaksandr Lukashenka held talks down very well might have a positive with Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican. impact on his popularity at home. Ac- cording to independent opinion polls, Lukashenka's first official visit to opposition to Lukashenka among the Western Europe since 1995 came country’s two million Catholics is after the European Union lifted its three times greater than it is among travel ban on the Belarusian Presi- the country's Orthodox majority and dent and other top Belarusian offi- nearly twice as great as it is among cials last October after Belarus Protestants. In other words, Luka- bowed to international pressure and shenka may have managed to disarm released several political prisoners Lukashenka's 5-year-old son, Mikalai, giving the pope his the largest bloc of opposition to him in in August 2008. ABCs book from school Belarusian society. For much of his presidency, for politi- A Vatican statement made an indirect tween the Belarusian government and the cal and geopolitical reasons, Luka- reference to the state of democracy and Catholic Church, Leanid Hulyaka, the shenka has acted as a buttress for Rus- human rights in Belarus, saying the government’s Commissioner on Reli- sian Orthodoxy. He suppressed the Pope and other Vatican officials spoke gious and Ethnic Affairs, said at a round- development of the Greek Catholic to Lukashenka about "certain internal table discussion in Minsk on May 7. (Uniate) Church from its stronghold in problems of the country." Ukraine, pressurised Belarus' own Lukashenka's trip to Italy and the Vatican Orthodox Church and adopted a re- Lukashenka invited the Pope to visit was not without controversy. An editorial pressive law on religion that discrimi- Belarus, telling the Pontiff at the end of in Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere nated against Protestant denomina- his 25-minute meeting, "Your Holiness, della Sera, criticised the Berlusconi gov- tions. His championing of the Ortho- we hope to receive you on Belarusian ernment for allowing the so-called doxy was symbolised in 2001, when soil, God willing." ‘Europe's last dictator’ to break his isola- he played host to the Patriarch of the tion in Italy. Russian Orthodox Church at exactly Approximately 60 percent of Belarus’ Italy’s Foreign Minister and former EU the same time that Pope John Paul II population is Orthodox Christian. How- Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and was paying a visit to Ukraine. ever, its President has often described Security Franco Frattini responded with a However, Lukashenka has quietly himself as an "Orthodox atheist." Bela- letter to the newspaper saying the visit pursued a policy of building up his rus' Orthodox Church is an exarchate of was part of a EU thaw. political capital through ecumenism the powerful Russian Orthodox Church. since at least 2002 - the time when he Lukashenka’s invitation to the Pope to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Luka- explicitly declared that he would like visit Belarus, whose Catholic commu- shenka and Italian Prime Minister Silvio to bring the Catholic and Orthodox nity constitutes 14 percent of the popu- Berlusconi met on the same day, April churches together. lation, is significant because relations 27, to discussed issues of Belarus' rap- between the Vatican and the Russian prochement with Europe. In the months before Lukashenka's Orthodox Church have been tense since At the talks the sides also touched upon visit to Rome, he met the Catholic the Soviet collapse. such an important humanitarian issue as Archbishop of Belarus and paid a sur- the adoption of Belarusian children by prise visit to Patriarch Kirill. Viewed The late Pope John Paul did not visit Italian families. In recent years, many in the context of Lukashenka's strat- Russia due to opposition from the late dossiers of documents have unilaterally egy, it now seems clear that he was Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II who been frozen by Minsk, the Italian Foreign trying to secure Kirill's (and the claimed that Catholics were "poaching" Minister said. However, according to Kremlin's) consent for a visit to Rome converts. Alexy's successor, Kirill, is Frattini, since the beginning of 2009, in and to discuss the possibility of a seen as more liberal and open to con- there have been some encouraging sig- meeting between Kirill and Benedict - tacts with the Vatican. The Vatican’s nals that positive decisions might be and, since his return from Rome, Lu- Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio reached on several dozen of specific kashenka has mused publicly about Bertone paid his first visit to Belarus in cases. his meetings with the Pope and the his official capacity in June 2008. He Commenting on Lukashenka’s visit to Patriarch. then met with Alyaksandr Lukashenka Rome and Vatican Vital Silitski, the Di- 27/04-24/05/2009 and the top clerics of the Roman Catho- rector of the Belarusian Institute for Stra- lic and Russian Orthodox Churches in tegic Studies, called it a ‘breakthrough Source: BISS, Itar-tass, ODB, Belarus.The visit of Pope Benedict which may also prove to be a break- zenith.org XVI should give a new impetus to the through in domestic politics’. Photo by Reuters work on a cooperation agreement be- According to Silitski, the fact that Luka- PAGE 3 BELARUS HEADLINES ISSUE XLI EU and Belarus Eastern Partnership Summit in Prague and cultural basis. The European Un- eralization without compromising ion has allocated approximately 600 security, and strengthen energy coop- million Euros to the partners for vari- eration allowing for a secure and long- ous projects until 2013 (Polish Radio, term transit route for resources across May 7). The small amount, as well as Belarusian territory. The newspaper the wording of the initial draft of the also maintained that the political di- partnership, which deleted the words rection pursued by the EPP began "European countries" with reference with the fall of the Iron Curtain in to the six countries, and replaced it 1989. Belarusian democratic forces representatives with "Eastern partners" (Daily Tele- Martynau declared that an important with Ferrero-Waldner graph, May 7), implies that the asso- issue for Belarus was the project of ciation may be initially limited in its the so-called ninth Transit Corridor, scope.