Statement By the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the international organizations in Geneva Sergei Aleinik at the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights on the draft resolution L.38 "Situation of Human Rights in Belarus"

April 17, 2003

Madam Chairperson,

Distinguished delegates,

I would like to address the draft resolution on Situation of Human Rights in Belarus, introduced by the delegation of the United States and, primarily, the allegations against my country it contains.

The United States is attempting to persuade the Commission, that the Belarusian authorities violate human rights. That country alleges that the Belarusian authorities persecute opposition, suppresses freedom of media, NGOs and religious groups.

What is it? A US-led campaign against a country whose leadership dares to pursue an independent policy?

What moral right on earth does the United States have to lecture Belarus on human rights respect,

a country which has all the democratic institutions:

two - chamber parliament,

a legitimate President, elected by universal suffrage,

an independent judiciary, including the Constitutional Court;

a country in which interethnic, confessional and social peace and harmony prevail;

a country where freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Constitution and the majority of printed mass media belong not to the Government but to various political parties, social and professional associations and NGOs enabling people to fully exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Introducing this draft resolution the US is trying to persuade the Commission that it is guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights instruments. The Commission should be mindful that the main sponsor of the draft resolution being a party to only three out of six core international human rights instruments practically ignores the existing treaty monitoring bodies and does not allow international community to assess the real human rights situation in the country.

Despite the allegations contained in the draft resolution, Belarus, unlike the United States, has never started a single war, never conquered another independent country, never sent Belarusian nationals to fight and kill in a remote foreign land,

without any regard to either UN Charter or UN Security Council resolutions on this issue or provisions of international law, as if these had been established for everyone but the United States,

treating peaceful demonstrations with rubber bullets and tear-gas rather than taking democratically into account the opinion of tens of thousands of American citizens urging President Bush to stop the war.

Is that OK with human rights? Why is nobody interested in having a closer look at US human rights practices at home and abroad?

Well, there are curious people. Example? Annual reports on the United States by Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, statements of OSCE officials, and, not to go far, Commission on Human Rights special representatives' reports to this present session of the Commission.

Looking through these documents one can get a very clear and unbiased idea that all the allegations contained in the US-drafted resolution could be interpreted as those concerning the situation of human rights in the United States rather than Belarus. And there are good reasons to conclude that this draft is designed to divert the attention of the Commission from human rights violations in USA.

In the draft under consideration the US and co-sponsors express deep concern about reports of arbitrary arrests and detention. The members of the Commission have had an opportunity to scrutinize the comments of Belarus that clearly show that all these accusations are false and ungrounded. And what do we have here with regard to the US itself?

According to the US part of the Human Rights Watch World Report 2003, the United States Government policy after the attacks of September 11 2001 profoundly altered the human rights landscape, so that the year 2002 was marked by significant steps backward in this sphere.

This independent human rights organization boldly states, that arbitrary detention of non-citizens, secret deportation hearings for persons suspected of connections to terrorism, the authorization of military commissions to try non-citizen terrorists, the failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions in treatment of detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, and the military detention without charge or access to counsel of US citizens designated as "enemy combatants" were among the US actions that indicated the failure of the US administration to respect human rights and humanitarian law in its anti-terrorist campaign.

As the report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention sets out, the initiatives of the USA in the struggle against terrorism blatantly contravene Human Rights International norms. Indeed, the UN Working Group concluded that, both the case of persons detained in prisons on United States territory and those detained at the Naval Base of Guantanamo Bay, amount to arbitrary detention

Using the language of the US draft resolution we strongly believe that today the US itself should be “mindful of the requests made to the Government of the USA by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the persons detained in Guantanamo Bay” (document E/CN.4/2003/8). It is proper time for the Commission “to urge the US to cooperate fully with all mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights, including through extending invitation to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention”.

The Human Rights Watch in its US Report further states that longstanding human rights problems in the United States continued as well, including police abuse, overincarceration of low-level offenders, primarily African-Americans and the poor, and the treatment of prisoners.

The Human Rights Watch strongly believes that the steps taken by the US Government to protect the country were against the very principles of democracy, which are still making the country witness a persistent erosion of most fundamental rights, including the right to liberty.

In the draft resolution the US expresses its ungrounded concern about alleged harassment of independent media in Belarus. In this regard let me give just a single example. Despite the fact that Belarus today is a young democracy with its economy in transition, over last three years the number of the private printed mass media in Belarus has increased by 21 per cent. The share of the private printed mass media in Belarus by January 2003 exceeded 70%. As for the TV market, there are 54 television-broadcasting companies in Belarus today, 72 per cent of which are privately owned. By the way one of them– the STV – has a US company as its co-owner.

What do we see in so-called mature democracy?

The human rights organization Reporters without Borders claims in its "United States - Annual report 2002", that the September 11 attacks caused more damage to press freedom in the United States than in any other country. According to the report, American authorities have been censoring media materials and broadcasts, exercising pressure over domestic and foreign radio and television companies, using arrests and imprisonments against American and foreign journalists.

The OSCE Representative on the freedom of media Mr. Fraimut Duve has tried several times to draw the attention of that organization to numerous human rights violations in the United States by FBI and the US Immigration and Naturalization Service in connection with Patriot Act, as well as outrageous harassment and discrimination of American celebrities tending to dare to speak out against the war in Iraq.

Recalling the UN principle of equality of all the sovereign countries, why Belarus is being singled out? Being aware of the fact that the human rights situation is hardly worse than the one US has, would the international community still be following the United States in their efforts to punish Belarus? What did Belarus do to deserve such attitude?

Has Belarus ever hosted terrorists on its territory or supported them financially?

Is Belarus obsessed with dreams of domination or intimidates the rest of the world with nuclear potential or other weapons of mass destruction?

Is Belarus causing regional instability or threatening its neighbors with conventional arms?

Is Belarus a centre of religious, interracial, confessional or any other sort of domestic conflicts?

Is Belarus producing drugs, which poison youngsters and take human lives away?

Is Belarus flooding Europe with illegal migrants and refugees?

A dozen times "No".

On the contrary, Belarus has steadily been making important contribution to regional stability and global security.

Belarus lost one fourth of its population in the Second World War, ensuring a real victory over nazi regime, which would have made the modern world substantially different if it had ever survived.

Belarus was the first to renounce the Soviet Union nuclear legacy without any conditions, and actually did not let new nuclear countries emerge after 1991.

Compliant with the CFE Treaty, Belarus dismantled at its own expense more conventional arms than the United States, France and Great Britain altogether.

Belarus is working hard as a powerful barrier against drugs in international antiterrorist efforts and fighting organized transnational crime.

We might have problems as a country in transition. We neither deny nor hide them. Belarus has always been open and numerously stated its readiness for cooperation and experience exchange with other democratic countries. But not under dictate or intimidation.

Belarus has just normalized its dialogue with the OSCE and created a friendly environment for operation of the OSCE Office in Minsk. The Belarusian Parliament was readmitted to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Our country has decisively embarked on the course of integration into European structures and it is so very sad for us to encounter artificially created obstacles on it.

Madam Chairperson,

Distinguished delegates,

There is no pattern of mass and gross violations of human rights in Belarus. Therefore, this draft resolution does not fall within the mandate of the Commission on Human Rights.

This draft resolution is completely politically motivated. Its language is that of propaganda. The allegations contained therein are not and cannot be proved by facts from credible sources, as they are absolutely unfounded.

Does this resolution help ensuring universality, objectivity and non-selectivity in consideration of human rights issues? Rather to the contrary.

We firmly believe that the adoption of this draft resolution would considerably undermine the credibility of this authoritative body. We believe that today the Commission should say "no" to its further politicization and refrain from being used as a tool of promoting political interests of some of its members.

One cannot but have serious doubts about sincerity of statements by the US delegation and be puzzled over inconsistency of its position and undisguised application of double standards.

We urge the Commission Member-States to consider that the US draft resolution is not only of anti-Belarusian nature, but is a means of intimidation of all States that have courage to express their position on the most important issues of world agenda independently from the USA. This resolution is not about observance of human rights in the world. It is about dictate and intimidation from a superpower with regard to peaceful nations. It is about flagrant abuse of the Commission and its mechanisms, about compromising its moral authority and credibility.

Having said that I would like to strongly urge the Commission’s member-states to refrain from adopting the US-drafted resolution on Situation of Human Rights in Belarus and vote “against” it.

Let me conclude, Madam Chairperson, by reminding the delegations the appeal made here just two days ago by the Head of the US delegation in connection with a vote on another draft resolution in which she called to vote against it arguing that it will only serve to enforce the distrust between countries, damage the constructive role played by this organization and marginalize the concerned governments. Her appeal is 100 percent exactly applicable to the US draft resolution on Belarus.

Thank you.