Public Statements

Ambassador Stewart’s  Media Roundtable

December 13, 2007

Ambassador:  Thank you very much for joining me today.  As you know, I have just returned to Belarus from Washington, after a week of very important meetings of seven leaders of the Belarusian democratic opposition and civil society with senior U.S. officials, including President Bush and Secretary of State Rice.

Before I begin my general remarks, I must condemn in the strongest terms the actions taken by the authorities against peaceful protestors.  Yesterday, Dmitriy Fedaruk was severely beaten by uniformed militia; he remains in the hospital, and we will continue our efforts to visit him there today.  On Monday, after a peaceful demonstration on behalf of entrepreneurs, plainclothes security forces arrested nine persons -- Viktor Ivashkevich, Viktor Gorbachev, Viktor Krival, Aleksey Koshkarev, Viktor Koley, Aleksandr Tsetsuro, Boris Goretskiy, Aleksandr Makayev, and Kristina Shatikova -- caused injuries to Anatoliy Lebedko, and detained Olga Kozulina.  These brutal actions reverse what little progress had been made in allowing peaceful protests.  The Department of State has expressed our government's deep concern for all of these individuals.

In all of last week's meetings in Washington, we stressed the continued commitment by the United States to the cause of democracy and freedom in Belarus.  The group -- Aleksandr Milinkevich, Anatoliy Lebedko, Sergey Kalyakin, Anatoliy Levkovich, Pavel Severinets, Dmitriy Fedaruk, and Enira Bronitskaya -- was invited on the basis of their current positions, their ongoing work, and their experience.  Their tactics, strategies, and perspectives differ: that is natural in any democratic process.  However, it is perfectly clear that those persons share a common interest in a free and democratic Belarus.  As a side note, let me say that we also invited the chairman of the Belarusian People's Front to take part in the Washington meetings; we respected Vintsuk Vyachorka's decision that the BNF's congress required his presence in Belarus, and have congratulated Levon Barshevskiy as the new BNF chairman. 

As we look toward 2008, we will continue to be guided by the commitment and interest of President Bush and Secretary Rice and the significance of their meetings with Belarusians last week.  At the same time, I would like to recall some of our discussions with Belarusian authorities this year.  In April, we welcomed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer to Minsk.  He outlined U.S. policy for Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Nataliya Petkevich and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Martynov, explaining that in the event that political prisoners were not released and other steps were not taken to place Belarus on a democratic path, the United States would work to expand existing travel restrictions and asset freezes.  However, despite drafts of amnesty legislation and a great deal of speculation, six persons -- Aleksandr Kozulin, Andrey Klimov, Dmitry Dashkevich, Artur Finkevich, Yuriy Leonov, and Nikolay Avtukhovich -- remain in jail or in khimya as political prisoners.   As before, we urge the Belarusian authorities to free all persons incarcerated on politically-motivated charges.

Because we have not seen fundamental progress, the United States has taken steps to increase our sanctions on the officials and institutions that we find responsible for the repression in Belarus.  We expanded our travel restrictions to include large categories of persons based on their positions, including for the first time directors and deputy directors of state-owned enterprises and their spouses.  Currently, up to 30 persons have been refused visas to the United States as a result.   In addition, based upon the fact that the state enterprise Belneftekhim is under the direct control of the regime, the U.S. Treasury has frozen their assets in the United States, closing the Belneftekhim office in the Boston area, and preventing U.S. citizens from doing business with Belneftekhim.  In the continued absence of progress on the part of the Belarusian authorities, the United States is prepared to take further steps against other state enterprises.

It continues to be the hope and goal of the United States and the European Union that the authorities will release all political prisoners, meet Belarus' international obligations for free and fair elections, and accord Belarusians their basic human rights.  But this is not a naïve hope.  The United States, which is in frequent discussion with the European Union about Belarus, will continue to take appropriate steps to focus the international spotlight on those persons responsible for the absence of progress in our relations, while extending friendship to the Belarusian people.
 
Thank you again for taking the time for this discussion.  I look forward to answering your questions about the issues I have mentioned and any other topics of interest to you.

Radio Liberty:  You said that the United States can take steps directed at other Belarusian enterprises. What steps and enterprises are those and who are those thirty persons that you mentioned, too, who are barred from entry into the United States?

Ambassador:  With regard to the first question about the sanctions on enterprises, it is important to look at the language of the presidential order that established these sanctions, because it focused on freezing the assets of senior members of the government who were involved in violating democratic rights, interfering with free and fair elections or are involved in corruption, and also those enterprises which they own or control and which they force to support their actions.  So for right now, our first step was against Belneftekhim. In the future,other enterprises that might be looked at would be subsidiaries of Belneftekhim or other state enterprises where we have evidence of a direct link between the top authorities and their control of the enterprise.  With regard to the individuals on the visa ban or the travel restrictions list, the privacy legislation about visa records says that I cannot give out names, but I will say that it is because of the extension to cover more officials and more state enterprises that led to this number who were refused visas and it’s a variety of enterprises of different sizes, regardless whether people go to the U.S. for business or tourism.

Interfax:  Madam Ambassador, what are the criteria on the basis of which you decide whether a state-owned enterprise is owned or controlled by an individual from the travel restrictions list?  State enterprises are owned by the state, not by specific individuals….

Ambassador:  What we do is to look at a variety of evidence from public statements, from the public records of businesses, to make a judgment as to how directly the management of those businesses is controlled by those individuals who are on the asset freeze list.  This decision is made by the U.S. Treasury Department back in Washington on all the available information, but as one example: we look for the evidence of direct decisions, such as, does the president of the country appoint or dismiss the chairman of the company. That’s just one example of one piece of evidence we might look at.

AP:  President Putin’s visit to Belarus begins today. Many regard this visit as part of the plan to be re-elected for the third term. Can you comment on this plan?

Ambassador:  As an observer, it seems to me still very doubtful that there will actually be any serious progress on the Union State and I just base that on the comments from both sides and certainly we don’t think, as we have said before, that the conditions exist yet for a free expression of public opinion and views on the Union State that makes it even more difficult to come about - and I won’t get too far to comment on Russian affairs as I am not our Ambassador in Moscow.  It appears to me that Putin is proceeding with other plans in pursuing his political career.

Radio Racyja:  During the trip of the Belarusian opposition delegation’s to Washington and their meetings there, including the one with President Bush, the issue of providing more support to independent mass media was raised.  Can you clarify what kind of support would it be and in what form will be provided?

Ambassador:  The delegation certainly continued to raise the issue of support—and increased support, if possible—for independent media at every meeting that they had in Washington and we all agreed that it was a top priority.  I don’t have any specific new decisions to announce yet about such support, but we assured the delegation in Washington that we would continue to support a variety of media—print media of various types, broadcast media, Internet—and that we were looking at all forms and that we would both continue the already strong support and that we would also take into consideration their expressions of concerns as areas we should look at.

Wider Europe:  Madam Ambassador, you mentioned that on the issue of sanctions you coordinate with the European Union. How would you explain then that after the introduction of the sanctions some Belarusian neighbors—including U.S. strategic allies—are promoting trade and economic cooperation with Belarus?

Ambassador:  We think we recognize that with the European Union it is a partnership in which we share the goals of a democratic and free Belarus but our situations are such that our tactics are going to be somewhat different.  So, we didn’t always take the exact same steps and we don’t always take them at the exact same time.  According to our different legal systems and according to our interests, some of our joint sanctions we share totally and some differ in our emphasis on which areas we focus on. With concerns of our policies, I think we stand very firm on our basic demands and the delegation, while they were in Washington, met with EU representatives also. So, I look upon it as an overall process on which we are working jointly.

Charter’97:  I understand your skepticism about the Union State, but if Putin and Lukashenko discuss the Russia-Belarus constitutional act tomorrow and it is decided to hold a referendum, how would the United States treat this threat to the independence of Belarus?

Ambassador:  We would only recognize the results of a referendum that would be held in a completely free and fair atmosphere and manner.

Telegraf.by:  In money terms, what do the frozen assets amount to?  And what is the volume of trade between Belneftekhim and U.S. companies?

Ambassador:  I am sorry, but I do not have the numbers of specific assets or losses in a broader sense.  My staff might later be able to provide at least the general number of what the trade has been in the oil sector.  The purpose of the sanction was, in many ways, to show that we no longer want to be economically supporting the regime in that fashion.  And I suspect that the losses may be more in the sense of the change in business practices that the company has to do in order not to be involved in U.S. banking system.   Therefore, it is somewhat harder to measure directly.

Belapan:  Getting back to my colleague’s question, a member of the Belarusian delegation, Anatoliy Lebedko, said while in Washington that there is a lack of coordination between the U.S. and the EU.  To what degree will you agree with this statement?

Ambassador:  We did discuss this with the delegation.   They raised this with us and we were very interested in that perception.  We clarified for Mr. Lebedko and the delegation just how much, how often, how frequently we coordinate with the EU, not only on our policies, but also on our assistance programs.  In relation to policy discussions, I would say that it’s more like a question of how you perceive our coordination of policies.  I think that after the discussions, the delegation had a better understanding of how closely we and EU work together.  I think it’s inevitable that countries that are next to their neighbors, on the same continent with Belarus, are going to have a slightly different approach from a country that is several thousands of miles away, but the message I heard that the European Union representatives give the Belarusian delegation was the same, basically, as ours, which is that any significant improvement of relations will depend, first, on the release of political prisoners and on Belarus showing us concrete willingness to make democratic improvements in society. 

Komsomolskaya Pravda:  Are you not concerned that as a result of the sanctions certain enterprises may close or otherwise suffer and that common Belarusians will thus have a negative view on democracy, having to think about their salaries first?

Ambassador:  In all our considerations of sanctions over the past several years we have tried very hard to design sanctions that focus on responsible people and not to generally hurt the people of Belarus.  Obviously, that is difficult when one is trying to design an economic sanction, but I think what we have done is, again, to target an enterprise; we have not cut off trade with the U.S. in general. We have not taken a wide-ranging sanction and as many people would probably point out, at least in the case of Belneftekhim, I doubt very much that our sanction will force them to close down their business.  And it is why we also try as much as we can to get out the message that any time that authorities begin to take democratic steps, we will be willing and in a position to extend our relationship with Belarus.

Interfax:  Madam Ambassador, there is a joint Venezuelan-Belarusian oil production venture with a 40% Belneftekhim share.  The U.S. has been buying oil from Venezuela.  Will it purchase oil from the enterprise co-owned by Belneftekhim?

Ambassador:  I don’t actually know, of course, whether this joint venture will actually go into operation and whether U.S. companies will buy oil from it.  The sanctions per se apply to Belneftekhim and the majority of its subsidiaries, but I can’t say whether or not this particular trade will happen.  I guess to be more clear, as long as Belneftekhim is only a minority partner of the company, it’s not directly impacted by this particular sanction.

Radio Liberty:  Madam Ambassador, I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate you on the honorary award you recently received.  Could you say a few words about it and maybe show it to us?

Ambassador:  I am sorry, it was a plaque and it didn’t occur to me to bring it.  Last year on International Human Rights Day, the Secretary of State announced that she was creating two new awards: one to be called the Defenders of Freedom Award to be granted to a non-American individual or non-governmental organization that were defending human rights; the other one was called the Diplomacy for Freedom Award, which is to be given to an American Chief of Mission— an Ambassador—for leadership of his or her embassy in the area of promoting democracy and the President’s Freedom Agenda.  The first award, the Defenders of Freedom Award was granted to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.  And it was my great honor to be the first recipient of the award for ambassadors, the Diplomacy for Freedom Award.  This award was to recognize the work of my embassy for trying as be as active as possible to support democratic activists in Belarus and supporting human rights and generally recognizing the work we have tried to do in that area. The Secretary of State gave us the awards in a ceremony on Monday.  Iit’s a very nice plaque  and I have it in my office.  Senator Lugar came, in particular because of his long work in the Senate in promoting democracy, and we talked a good deal about how he has followed the events in Belarus over the past years.

Belorusy i Rynok:  You mentioned the recent incident of yesterday’s demonstration in which some members of the delegation to Washington received injuries. Can it be the Belarusian authorities’ reaction to their trip to the U.S.?

Ambassador:  Obviously, we are watching this with great concern.  At this point, I don’t think that they were focusing on them because they had gone to Washington.  I think they focused on them for the same reason that we invited them to Washington, which is because they are very active leaders in the democratic movement.  But I can say that the White House was concerned and is particularly watching now that the delegation has returned to Belarus.

European Radio for Belarus:  Madam Ambassador, you mentioned in your opening statement that you would continue to try and visit Dmitriy Fedaruk in the hospital. Did you make such attempts?  Why did you fail to see him?

Ambassador:  Two of my Embassy officers were at the hospital last night when we first heard of this awful event   They were told that it was too late for visiting hours, so they couldn’t see him, but they talked to the doctor, Dmitriy’s mother, and other friends and they did plan to try again to see him this afternoon during visiting hours.

Interfax: Two questions, if I may.  Several days ago the Ministry of Justice registered the
“Belaya Rus’” organization.  In your opinion, does forming this movement comply with democracy standards and don’t you think that the “party of power” is being established in Belarus?  And the second question: this past summer the Russian Ambassador to Belarus said that nuclear weapons facilities may be returned to Belarus in response to the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Europe?  How possible do you think this scenario is and what would the U.S. reaction be in this case?

Ambassador:  On Belaya Rus’, certainly based on the people who have signed up to be the leaders and the organizers of the party it certainly seems to be the party that would be supporting the current government and current authorities in power.  I don’t think it would be an issue with the Ministry of Justice registering the party, except that the Ministry of Justice ought to be equally willing to register other parties and NGOs in this country, rather than discriminate against independent organizations.  With regard to the question on missiles and such, a lot of comments are coming out of Russia about our plans for missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland in terms of their reaction, but overall the last I have seen indicates to me that they are not planning on putting any missiles in Belarus to counter that program.  I am reminded that the Russian Ambassador himself said that he was misquoted.  More importantly, from my point of view as representative of the U.S. Government, is that we continue to consult with Russia to explain how the system is aimed at protecting Europe and America from threats from other states, Iran, for example, and is not in any way aimed at Russia or Belarus, for that matter, and would not have any impact on the Russian nuclear deterrent.

Wider Europe:  Some media sources say that President Bush is set to resolve two issues before his presidential tenure expires: Iran and Belarus.  How serious are those statements?

Ambassador:  Completing tasks is a rather undefined term, but the President said, I think, and said very clearly that his Freedom Agenda will continue to be the strongest point that he is going to focus upon during the rest of his term of office.  The President told the Belarusian delegation that freedom is a God-given right and desire for every person, and that, therefore, those of us who are blessed with a system that allows us to enjoy freedom have the responsibility to try and help the growth of democracy and freedom in other countries.  So, I interpret that to mean that the President will continue to put focus and direct his government to do that throughout the world with a variety of countries where people are still struggling for their fundamental human rights and democracy.

Belorusy i Rynok:  How effective do you think the present sanctions are and when are you going to introduce new sanctions and how effective will the new ones be?

Ambassador:  We believe that the sanctions have begun to have at least a psychological effect in terms of what we hear of the reactions of persons within the government and how the companies have to adjust. So, we feel that people are at least hearing the message behind the sanctions of how seriously we take the development of democracy and what’s lost in our relationship and what can be gained in our relationship if there were basic democratic fundamentals for a better relationship.  I can’t give you a time frame for next sanctions because the point of the sanction regime is that it’s open-ended and we here and back in Washington are in the process of assessing the information we have about which enterprises may be subject to the terms of sanctions. I know that now the Treasury Department is handling questions related to Belneftekhim and its subsidiaries.

Thank you all very much.