NCSJ - Belarus page

Population: 10.32 million

Ethnic Composition:
81.2% Belarusian, 11.4% Russian, 7.4% Polish, Ukrainian and other

Religion: 80% Eastern Orthodox, 20% other (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim)

Jewish population: 50-80,000
2002 Aliyah (emigration to Israel): 974
2002 Emigration to United States: 225

Size: 207,600 sq km
Capital: Minsk
Major cities: Gomel, Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk

Freedom House Rating: Not Free

Currency: 2,103 Belarusian rubles = $1 (October 3, 2003)

GDP: $14.3 billion (2003)
GDP per capita: $1,444 (2003)
GDP Growth: 4.7% (2003)

Head of State:
President Aleksandr Lukashenko

Head of Government:
Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky

Foreign Minister:
Sergei N. Martynov

Ambassador to United States:
Mikhail M. Khvostov

U.S. Ambassador to Belarus:
George Krol

Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Belarus

SUMMARY

Belarus’ history of domination by foreign powers has contributed to its muted sense of independence – including its resistance to the breakup of the Soviet Union. As a result, many Belarusian institutions remain mired in Soviet-era protocol and attitudes. Belarus’ struggling economy retains its pre-independence structure virtually intact, and the current regime has stopped and in some cases reversed market-oriented reform. With the alienation of Western states and the accompanying shortfall in foreign assistance, Belarus has become increasingly reliant upon its neighbor Russia, with the two countries cultivating a bi-national union.

The international community widely regards President Lukashenko’s legal term of office as having expired in 1999. The government perpetuates or permits large-scale human rights abuses, while vowing to protect individual freedoms. Though internal opposition became more apparent throughout 2000, international observers are skeptical about the medium-term prospects for democracy in Belarus.

The Belarusian Jewish community, nearly wiped out by the Holocaust and by Soviet policies, is now represented through many local organizations, and actively supported by Israeli and American organizations. However, popular anti-Semitism is prevalent, as it has been throughout Belarus’ history. Relations with the government are complicated by the state’s sporadic response to popular and political anti-Semitism, and the issues of communal property restitution and preservation remain unresolved.

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REPUBLIC OF BELARUS

INTRODUCTION
POLITICAL SITUATION
    Religious Freedom
    Foreign Policy
ECONOMIC SITUATION
JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
    Organizations and Programs
    Restitution
    Anti-Semitism
    Official Response
U.S. POLICY

Belarus occupies about one percent of the total territory of the former Soviet Union. Landlocked and slightly smaller than Kansas, Belarus is bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

Belarus has a long history of division and domination by foreign powers. Incorporated into the Russian Empire during the partition of Poland (1772-95), Belarus endured long periods of Russification and assimilation during its occupation by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It was not until the end of the 19^th century that Belarus first asserted its national distinctiveness from Russia. In 1918, amid the chaos of World War I and its aftermath, nationalists succeeded in establishing the Belarusian Democratic Republic. Less than a year later, this brief independence was crushed by Red Army forces that seized the country and declared it the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1922, Belarus formally became one of the four original Soviet republics. Belarus lost almost 2.2 million citizens in World War II, or one-quarter of its population.

The Communist Party of Belarus was one of the most conservative in the Soviet Union, as was the Belarusian population. Though in a March 1991 referendum, 83 percent of the Belarus electorate voted to preserve the Soviet Union, Belarus declared its independence on August 25, 1991.

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POLITICAL SITUATION

Elections to the Belarusian SSR’s Supreme Soviet held in March 1990 returned the Communists to power under reformist Chairman Stanislau Shushkevich. Shushkevich advocated free market reforms and distancing Belarus from Russia. He signed the treaty formally dissolving the Soviet Union and forming the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with Russia and Ukraine in December 1991, but his opposition to closer relations with Moscow motivated his ouster by conservative lawmakers in January 1994.

Belarus’ first post-Soviet constitution took effect on March 30, 1994, establishing a Presidency, bicameral Parliament (Natsionalnoye Sobranie), and Constitutional Court. Presidential elections in July 1994 resulted in the upset victory of populist candidate Aleksandr Lukashenko, who ran on a platform of anti-corruption and greater economic integration with Russia. In November 1996, despite widespread protest, a public referendum for a new constitution was passed, giving the President almost absolute power and extending his term by two years, to end in 2001. Opposition parties as well as the international community condemned the referendum as deeply flawed and illegitimate. In February 1997, the Council of Europe openly charged that Lukashenko had used illegal means to increase his power. Several Belarusian state officials, including the Prime Minister and the head of the electoral commission, resigned in protest. Many within the opposition were intimidated, arrested, and fined.

For the Belarusian opposition and much of the international community, Lukashenko ceased being a legitimate head of state at the end of his original term on July 21, 1999.

With the referendum, the Supreme Soviet was effectively dissolved and those deputies loyal to Lukashenko were reconstituted in the form of a smaller and new parliament, or National Assembly. The new form of the Parliament is bicameral, with a 110-member House of Representatives (Palata Predstaviteley) and a 65-member Council of the Republic (Soviet Respubliki); all members of the Assembly are elected to four-year terms. The judiciary is not independent, as the President appoints all judges to the Supreme Court and half the members of the Constitutional Court; the other half are appointed by the Palata Predstaviteley.

The last elections to the Palata Predstaviteley, which were also considered illegitimate by the international community, took place in October 2000 and produced a legislature dominated by Lukashenko supporters. The next parliamentary election is scheduled for September 2004.

The Belarusian government has come under severe criticism from international human rights organizations. Freedom of speech, movement and assembly are limited, and the government maintains a virtual monopoly over the press. Some Soviet-era restrictions remain in effect, and overt expressions of protest can draw harsh reaction from the authorities.

An alarming number of opposition figures have gone missing after criticizing President Lukashenko, and others have been tried and jailed. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the U.S. State Department have called for an independent inquiry into the 1999-2000 disappearances of Yury Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky, and Dmitri Zavadsky.

Within this general climate of repression and fear, the 2001 presidential election all but guaranteed Lukashenko another term. The OSCE, Council of Europe, European Union (EU) and United States called the campaign and election undemocratic. The strongest opposition candidate, Mikhail Chygir, was barred from running due to a pending investigation for alleged abuses of power while Prime Minister in 1994-96. Other opposition candidates, their campaign workers, volunteers and supporters were harassed, detained and fined in the pre-election period.

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Religious Freedom

The U.S. State Department reports that while the Belarusian constitution grants religious freedom, the government does not always respect this right in practice, especially with respect to “nontraditional” faiths such as Protestantism or Eastern religions. These religious groups have been denied official registration and thereby restricted in their ability to carry out religious functions, as well as occasionally harassed by police. Lukashenko has also promoted Russian Orthodoxy as the “main” religion of Belarus.

In October 2002, the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations was enacted, promising to narrow the field of groups eligible for mandatory registration and limiting the activities of all nontraditional religious groups, while emphasizing the preeminent position of the Russian Orthodox Church. For a group or local chapter to be registered, it must have been active in Belarus for at least 20 years and must consist of 20 Belarusian citizens. Unregistered groups are banned from any religious activity. Religious literature (particularly of foreign origin) requires the approval of a new state agency, effectively subjecting it to government censorship.

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Foreign Policy

Russia is the only nation with which Belarus retains close ties. A 1995 referendum tightened economic relations, and the 1997 and 1999 Belarus-Russia Union Treaties provided for close coordination of foreign, military and economic policies, although few provisions have been implemented. Russia has also extended financial support to the Belarusian government, but since mid-2000 has distanced itself from Belarus, while talks for a Russia-Belarus Union State proceed sporadically. Belarusian relations with other nations in the region, especially those with more democratic systems, are tepid.

Russia - Presidential Press Service

August 2003: Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Lukashenko at the Kremlin before a meeting of the Russian-Belarusian Union State’s State Council

Belarus has been part of such collective organizations as the European Community, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the 1990s. However, relations with, and support from, these groups have deteriorated as economic and democratic reforms in Belarus have stalled or reversed.

Belarus has done little to appease the international community in diplomatic, political or economic terms, and Lukashenko has openly disparaged it. In 1998, after the Belarusian government blocked access to several diplomatic residences in Minsk, the EU ambassadors and U.S. ambassador were recalled to their capitals and the EU imposed a travel ban on high-ranking Belarusian officials; the United States followed suit shortly after. The EU lifted its travel ban in 1999, when its ambassadors were allowed to return. In retaliation for OSCE criticism of election and human rights violations, Belarus expelled the head of the organization’s Advisory and Monitoring Group in June 2002, ending the mission’s work there.

In response to this and the general erosion of human rights and political freedom in Belarus, the 14 EU members and the United States again imposed a travel ban on high-ranking Belarusian officials in November 2002. Lukashenko was excluded from participating in the November 2002 NATO summit in Prague, but was admitted to the OSCE Ministerial Council session in Porto, Portugal. Belarus subsequently readmitted the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group, and the Group now operates in Belarus under a tightly restricted mandate. The United States and EU lifted their 2002 travel ban in April 2003.

In April 2000, then-Foreign Minister Ural Latypov visited Jerusalem to sign bilateral agreements on trade, investment, science, culture and education with David Levy, Israel’s then-Foreign Minister, and agreed to form a joint committee to deepen bilateral ties. Latypov also met with other Israeli officials, laid a wreath at Yad Vashem, and extended an invitation for Levy to visit Minsk.

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ECONOMIC SITUATION

Belarus had a relatively well-developed industrial base under Soviet rule and retained much of it following the breakup of the USSR. A strong agricultural sector and high quality educational system had afforded Belarus one of the highest standards of living among the Soviet republics. Since 1986, however, Belarus has been dealing with the massive social and economic repercussions of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine, which spread radioactive fallout across large sections of Belarus. Chernobyl generated a public health crisis and left large sections of the countryside unsafe for habitation or cultivation. The disaster, when it finally came to light, sparked rare displays of Belarusian popular disaffection with the Soviet authorities.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 cut off Belarus from traditional supply sources, leaving it in the precarious position of having to import two-thirds of its raw materials. Facing the difficult transition from a state-run economy to a free-market system, Belarus pursued few substantive changes in the early 1990s toward achieving a market economy, and has since backed away from reform and liberalization in almost every sector.

The government was one of the last in Europe to legalize privatization, and negligible progress in this sector has deterred the foreign investment critical to rebuilding the Belarusian economy and infrastructure. International financial institutions, in response, largely ceased their funding from 1996 to 2000.

For the average citizen, living conditions remain grim despite state subsidies of basic goods. Although official unemployment is low, under-employment remains a problem, with the poverty rate at nearly 29 percent in 2001.

Russia accounts for over 60 percent of Belarus’ imports, with heavy emphasis on cheap Russian energy and raw materials. The 1998 Russian financial crisis hurt Belarus badly, and Russia supplied Belarus with a $96 million stabilization loan over 2001-02. Belarus plans to peg its ruble to the Russian ruble in 2004, in order to adopt the Russian currency by 2005 as part of the hoped-for Russia-Belarus union. In 2001-02, Belarusian reforms picked up slightly, leading to an increase in international investment and some renewed interest from major international lenders.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) continues to support projects in Belarus arranged before 2000, but otherwise has refocused its aid on small non-governmental enterprises. After two years of absence, the World Bank resumed funding in 2002 with a pledge of $22.6 million in loans for infrastructural repairs in schools and hospitals. The Bank has loaned Belarus $193 million since July 1992, a fraction of its outlays to Ukraine and Russia. While the IMF continues to offer technical assistance to Belarus, lending organizations stated in April 2003 that high-level assistance will be put on hold until Belarus enacts substantial structural reforms.

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JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM

Jewish communities first appeared in Belarus in the 14^th century, when the country was considered part of Poland-Lithuania. By the end of the 19^th century, Jews comprised 13 percent of the total population of Belarus and half the population in Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, and Gomel. Located within the Russian “Pale of Settlement,” to which Jews were confined, Belarus was a center of Jewish life.

Belarus also exhibited high levels of popular anti-Semitism. As Jews began to settle in Belarus in the 14^th century, the Christian community consistently opposed the permanent settlement of Jews within cities and towns. During the partition of Poland (1772-95), Jewish communities were in constant danger of Russian massacres. So too, Belarusian Jews fell victim to the later pogroms of 1897 and 1905.

During the Soviet period, the state persistently attempted to abolish the practice of Judaism in Belarus by means of numerous restrictions. In addition, the Jewish population was severely affected by the Soviet purges of the 1930s. During World War II, German forces and local collaborators murdered roughly 800,000 Belarusian Jews. In total, one-quarter of Belarus’ population was killed in the war, and 90 percent of the country’s Jewish population was wiped out. To date, 527 Belarusians have been honored by Israel as “Righteous Among the Nations” for helping to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The sprawling Khatyn World War II Memorial, near Minsk, commemorates the destruction of 619 villages in 1943 by the invading German forces; constructed in 1969 on the remains of one of the destroyed villages, Khatyn, its antiwar theme challenged Soviet orthodoxies.

photo: Terry Fisher

World War II
Memorial at Khatyn

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Organizations and Programs

There are over 26 Jewish communities in Belarus, five national organizations, and 15 local cultural groups. The primary coordinating body is the Belarus Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities (ABJOC). Religious services are provided throughout Belarus by several organizations, including Chabad Lubavitch, Aish HaTorah, the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations (URJC).

Educational programs operate in cities throughout the country, with three Jewish day schools in Minsk and one each in Gomel, Mogilev, and Pinsk. There are no state-run Jewish schools, and in 2002 authorities denied a request for the creation of a Jewish secondary school in Minsk. All of the Jewish day schools are currently funded by the Israeli Education Ministry. Over 20 Sunday schools hold weekly classes. The People’s University in Minsk has offered informal lectures on Jewish studies since 1999. The Marc Chagall Institute of Jewish Studies opened at the State University of Belarus the same year. ORT established a technology resource center at the Institute in May 2002 for teacher and professional training. The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI/ “Sochnut”) runs a network of Hebrew-instruction ulpans, youth clubs and other programs to encourage aliyah. A chapter of Hillel is based in Minsk.

The American-based Yeshiva and University Students for the Spiritual Revival of Soviet Jewry (YUSSR) has operated youth camps and seminars in Belarus since 1992, and sponsors adult education, Yiddish and Jewish cultural programming, primarily in Minsk and Mogilev.

An ABJOC-initiated Holocaust education program is operating in several non-Jewish schools in Minsk and other cities. The program expanded in April 2003, when a two-day seminar for mostly non-Jewish teachers was held in Minsk, sponsored with help from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) and the Belarusian Ministry of Education.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC/ “Joint”) is active in Minsk and 14 other Belarusian cities. It runs the Creative Intellectuals’ Club for Jewish Studies, provides food and medicine to impoverished Jews through its network of Hesed (charity) centers, and operates a “Warm Homes” aid program for Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. In 2002, JDC opened a Jewish Community Center in Minsk, which also houses a new Belarusian Jewish history museum established by ABJOC. Other programs include women’s clubs, children’s activities, and computer classes.

Several war veteran and ghetto survivor societies operate throughout Belarus, advocating for state benefits and for German and Swiss compensation; war veterans receive a state pension of about $100 per month. The World Association of Belarusian Jewry (WABJ), a U.S.-based organization that has also worked for war veterans, was denied registration as a Belarusian organization in 1999, and its court appeals to overturn the decision failed.

Yama (“the pit”) was the first official Holocaust memorial established on the territory of the Soviet Union. Erected in 1946, it was dedicated in Yiddish and Russian to the 5,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto who were murdered at the site on March 2, 1942. In recognizing the Jewish heritage of its victims in a Yiddish-language dedication, this monument was unique in the Soviet Union. Unlike at other Holocaust sites in the Soviet Union, Jews were legally permitted to gather at Yama throughout the Soviet period. In 2000, the Soviet-era monument was expanded and rededicated. Today it includes a walkway and plaza, trees planted for Righteous Gentiles, and a sculpture depicting Jewish victims descending into the ravine.

Another mass grave, at Slutsk, was discovered in October 2002. Residents report that the estimated 12,000 victims, mostly Jews, were taken from Slutsk and a nearby concentration camp and executed by Nazi forces in 1942-44; excavation of the site continues.

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Restitution

Belarus has no law on the restitution of communal property, and attempts to salvage Jewish cemeteries and properties have met with mixed success. Jewish cemeteries in Slonim, Volozhin and Radim were fenced off, thanks to efforts by the Jewish community, to prevent construction on those sites. While a small number of Communist-seized buildings, including nine synagogues, have been returned to the Jewish community, little progress has been achieved overall. Some 96 synagogues remain in state hands despite concerted community efforts and letter campaigns to government authorities.

The Volozhin Yeshiva, built in 1803 as the founding institution of the modern Yeshiva movement, was returned to the care of the URJC in the early 1990s, as was the Slonim Synagogue. Both have been registered as state historical sites and are in need of restoration; some repairs have been conducted on the yeshiva.

In some cases, historical and cultural landmarks have been destroyed despite Jewish community opposition. A former synagogue, built at the end of the 19^th century and located in a historic district of Minsk, was demolished in September 2001 to make way for luxury apartments. Before the building’s demolition, the Ministry of Culture revoked the building’s status as a historical monument. Jewish community protests addressed to the Minsk city government and to the Ministry of Culture received no response. In November 2002, 75 Belarusian lawmakers took up this cause, appealing to President Lukashenko to stop the destruction of Jewish cultural landmarks, especially the apartment construction and the construction of a parking lot on the foundations of a ruined 16^th century synagogue.

The 2002 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations has triggered anxieties in religious groups throughout Belarus. While Judaism is recognized along with Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity as a traditional religion with a long Belarusian history, many Jews see the law as a serious threat, especially to efforts to restitute communal property.

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Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitic acts involving Jewish cemetery desecrations, graffiti and attacks on community property increased across Belarus in 2002-03. Cemetery desecrations have taken place in Minsk, Borisov, Vitebsk, Bobruysk, and other cities. In Minsk, the Moscow and Severnoye Cemeteries were vandalized in July 2002. Two dozen tombstones were toppled or smashed in each location in a clearly coordinated effort. In Borisov, the July 2002 desecration of the Jewish cemetery was one of several acts against Jewish property in the city. In May 2003, vandals heavily damaged a memorial bench, presented by then-President Bill Clinton on his 1994 visit, at the Kuropaty gravesite in Minsk; the bench had been repaired and rededicated in January 2002 following a similar attack. Also in May 2003, Minsk’s Yama memorial and a Holocaust memorial in Timkovichi were both defaced. The Jewish Sunday school, the Jewish Charity Center and the office of the Jewish Youth Organization in Borisov have also been targets of recent attacks. No suspects have been identified in any of these cases.

The two most recent cases of cemetery desecration occurred in June 2003, in Grodno and Mogilev. In Grodno, a soccer stadium is being expanded over a 300-year-old Jewish cemetery; construction has destroyed and unearthed remains. The Jewish community has appealed to the Belarussian government and Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJE), as well as the world and European governing bodies for soccer (FIFA and UEFA) in an attempt to stop the construction. In another recent incident, the Jewish cemetery in Mogilev was opened by local authorities to non-Jewish burials, resulting in the destruction of Jewish graves, and crosses have been erected at the entrance to the cemetery.

Anti-Semitic graffiti in public places also escalated in 2002-03. In addition to the swastika – seen on walls, fences, doorways and underground passages throughout Belarus, often accompanied by the abbreviation for the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity party (RNE) – newer symbols and combinations have been introduced.

The Belarus branch of the RNE movement, led by former Lukashenko aide Andrei Valliulin, has increased its activities markedly since early 1999. It has branches in 11 cities, and holds nationalistic and anti-Semitic demonstrations unhindered by the authorities. In November 2002, lawmaker Suarhey Kastsyan made openly anti-Semitic remarks in regard to community attempts to save threatened properties, sparking criticism from the Jewish community.

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Official Response

Relations between the Belarus Jewish community and the government have deteriorated since 2000, amid the appearance of increased official involvement in popular anti-Semitism and support for policies insensitive toward Jews and other minorities.

Although the Lukashenko regime does not openly condone anti-Semitism, members of Lukashenko’s inner circle have engaged in public anti-Semitic appeals, or have declined to speak out against the publication and broadcast of anti-Semitic diatribes. In 1999, the government denied a license to the Moscow-based Slavyanskaya Gazeta newspaper, under a law prohibiting racist propaganda, and later warned several other newspapers publishing anti-Semitic material.

In late 1999, the Orthodox Initiative, an Orthodox Christian organization, published War According To the Law of Abominations, a compilation of virulently anti-Semitic material from various sources, including the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The book includes a dedication to President Lukashenko and has been advertised in a government-owned newspaper. Local Jewish organizations sued the publisher for libel, but the courts have ruled that the book has scientific value.

In July 2002, in a series of letters to the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the Council of Ministers, and the Chairman of the State Committee on Religions and Nationalities, ABJOC addressed these recent incidents and the past inaction of the authorities and urged appropriate measures to curb anti-Semitism and preserve interethnic relations.

The state Public Prosecutor responded in August 2002 that several criminal cases had been opened in each of the recent defacement incidents – in Borisov, Vitebsk, and in Minsk (for the Severnoye cemetery vandalism). The letter also explained that two men convicted for cemetery desecrations in Borisov in 2000 had received amnesty, and that others suspected in the case were released because they were minors. Lukashenko responded by stating that there is no anti-Semitism in Belarus, and deemed the desecrations “mere hooliganism.”

In October 2003, an attempt was made to close down the Marc Chagall Institute of Jewish Studies in Belarus State University; in response to national and international concern, the government promised to allow the Institute to continue operation as part of the University.

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U.S. POLICY