STRANGLING THE NGO COMMUNITY

"Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests."

Article 22(1) of the ICCPR

The drive by the Belarusian government to control the activities of non-state actors is strangling the NGO community. In some cases the government has tried to gain substantial influence over the functioning of NGOs; in others, private organizations have been harassed and intimidated in an apparent attempt to force them to close. Notably, harassment and intimidation are not confined to such organizations as trade unions and human rights organizations, but also include humanitarian NGOs. While the authorities harass independent organizations, they have encouraged (if not initiated) the creation of a pro-presidential youth organization called Direct Action/BPSM that employs rhetoric openly threatening its opponents.

Several methods are used to harass the NGO community and to weaken its morale, including raising rents arbitrarily, ending rental contracts and performing audits. Although such measures in and of themselves are not usually of concern to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, it appears that they are used in Belarus for the sole objective of hindering the functioning of NGOs, intimidating their employees and volunteers, and creating a pretext for imposing sanctions that are, in turn, aimed at closing them or forcing them to suspend their operations. The positive contribution that NGOs-in particular, human rights NGOs-make towards building civil society has been generally acknowledged by the international community. The Belarusian government's harassment and intimidation of NGOs thus runs counter to prevailing international practice.

Audits and Other Forms of Harassment

A key weapon used by the authorities in their battle against NGOs is the tax audit. While it may be perfectly legitimate to audit an NGO, audits are carried out in Belarus with the apparent aims of paralyzing the work of NGOs and finding a pretext for imposing sanctions on them. On March 19, 1997, representatives of the Security Council-a body which, under the Law on Public Associations, does not have the right to audit NGOs-notified three organizations that audits would be carried out. The cases of these organizations, Children of Chernobyl, the East-West Center for Strategic Initiative, and the Belarusian Soros Foundation are illustrative of the intentions of the authorities to hinder or make impossible the functioning of NGOs.

Children of Chernobyl is a humanitarian organization that helps young victims of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Over the years, it has sent a large number of children with serious illnesses to Western Europe and North America for short trips meant to provide them with good medical care and some relief from the difficult situation they face at home. The organization has also distributed large quantities of humanitarian aid, such as medicine, in the region affected by the disaster. Irina Grushevaya, one of the leaders of the organization, told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that the organization was based on the idea of participation: People have to become actively involved in the work of the organization before they start receiving money. As a result of this policy, local structures that receive funding from Children of Chernobyl have developed throughout Belarus. According to Grushevaya, some 700 volunteers work with the organization in Minsk, and there are some sixty-two regional sections the country. The regional sections do the preparatory work for the children's trips and are involved in setting up and carrying out humanitarian programs.81

Children of Chernobyl has been subjected to various forms of harassment throughout the last few years. Initially, the government proposed that the organization become a part of the state relief program. The organization refused the offer. In late 1996, the rent for the organization's office was suddenly raised by a factor of twenty, after which the organization immediately moved to a new location. In late January 1997, however, the government informed the organization that it had to pay rent for the old location accrued during the four months since the move. The organization refuses to pay the money and is seriously worried that the government may rely upon this refusal as a pretext to close the organization altogether.

In early 1997, the Ministry of Education informed Children of Chernobyl that it would forbid the organization from sending any more children abroad if the organization did not bring back a girl to Belarus who had allegedly been taken to Germany unlawfully. The girl had been sent to Germany for treatment by Children of Chernobyl in the early 1990s and had returned to Belarus at the end of her stay. Three years later, the German couple that had hosted her in 1991 visited Belarus and expressed an interest in adopting her. The adoption was arranged without the involvement of Children of Chernobyl. The ministry's threat, apparently an act of harassment, was eventually dropped when many people, including German Minister of Foreign Affairs Klaus Kinkel, protested to the Belarusian authorities.

The organization has also undergone several audits. Last year, an extensive audit lasted about six months and included the participation of all levels of the procuracy, the presidential administration, the tax inspectorate and the economic crimes unit. When the audit was finished in October 1996 and no irregularities were found, Children of Chernobyl was told that it would not be audited again for a long time. But on March 19, 1997, a representative of the Security Council visited the organization and announced a new audit.

The Security Council was interested in, among others things, financial aid that Children of Chernobyl had provided to some twenty former subway employees who had been fired for participating in a 1995 strike, which had called on the subway administration to respect a salary agreement. When the strikers and their families turned to Children of Chernobyl for assistance, the organization approached a contact in a German labour union who gathered some money. Children of Chernobyl subsequently distributed it to the twenty families. The Security Council also requested information on two trips to a sanatorium that were paid for by Children of Chernobyl for Yury Khodyko and Vyacheslav Sivchik, leaders of the Belarusian Popular Front. Both men had been arrested on April 26, 1996, during a demonstration commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. As the men felt that they had been detained arbitrarily, they started a hunger strike that lasted twenty-one days. After their hunger strike, the health of both men deteriorated significantly and they apparently needed to recover at a sanatorium. Since Children of Chernobyl had been one of the organizers of the demonstration, the organization decided to pay for these trips.

On May 23 and 25, 1997, the procurator of the Moscow district of Minsk announced on public television that "serious violations" had been found in the economic activities of the organization and that criminal cases had been instituted against Gennady Grushevoy, the leader of Children of Chernobyl, and against the organization's main bookkeeper. According to unconfirmed reports, an order to arrest Grushevoy has already been issued. At the time of the television announcements, Children of Chernobyl had not yet been informed of the final results of the audit. In fact, to date the organization has received only a preliminary report of the findings of the audit, which are highly speculative in nature and contain neither concrete accusations against Grushevoy or others nor references to the legal provisions that were allegedly violated.82

Irina Grushevaya believes the harassment of Children of Chernobyl is linked to the fact that the organization supports and encourages the idea of self-organization and independence from the state. She told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki: "With our principles, people change, . . . their mentality changes, feelings of protest appear, they become thinking beings. . . We worked in this spirit all the time and thus became dangerous [for the authorities]."83

Because of this harassment, the organization recently had to stop its program of humanitarian support for kindergartens, orphanages and the physically handicapped.

Another NGO currently being audited is The East-West Center for Strategic Initiatives (EWCSI). The EWCSI aims at uniting all democratically-minded businessmen, politicians and scientists in a think-tank to facilitate the creation of civil society and promote understanding between East and West. During its five-year existence it organized a permanent round table entitled "Belarus-Russia" with the participation of Russian Duma deputies, as well as a yearly conference on security in Europe with the participation of NATO experts, Russian specialists on foreign policy and defense, Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian officials, and it has issued various research papers on these topics.

On February 26, 1997, the EWCSI organized a round table featuring those deputies of the Thirteenth Supreme Soviet who do not have a seat in the Chamber of Representatives. Shortly thereafter, the administration of the building where the EWCSI office is located informed the EWCSI that it had to quit its office space before March 31, 1997, allegedly because NGOs cannot be based in buildings that belong to the presidential administration. On March 19, 1997, when representatives of the Security Council announced an audit of the organization, the lease of the office space was extended until after the audit.84

As of this writing, the audit has not been finalized. However, in late April, the organization was fined US$20,000 for allegedly having engaged in commercial activities that are not permitted under its status as a nonprofit organization. The EWCSI denies the charges and has appealed the fine in court. Employees of the EWCSI are frequently called in for questioning by the tax inspectorate.85

The atmosphere of intimidation created by the forms of harassment discussed above has caused some NGOs to fear unwarranted searches of their offices. Representatives of one NGO told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that they had removed all confidential materials from the office as they were afraid that they too might be raided.86

Deprivation of Financial Resources

The Belarusian authorities announced on April 29, 1997 that they would impose a fine of approximately US$3 million on the Belarusian Soros Foundation for alleged currency exchange violations. When the foundation's bank account was frozen, it suspended its activities in Belarus. The Soros Foundation claims that the allegations are without merit and believes that the imposition of the fine was designed to force the Belarusian Soros Foundation to shut down.87

Human Rights Watch/Helsinki is concerned that the imposition of this fine was in fact aimed at incapacitating the independent organizations that make up Belarus's nascent civil society. The Soros Foundation is one of the main sources of financial assistance for independent organizations in Eastern Europe. In Belarus, it has provided about US$13 million over the last few years in support of education, science, internet access, the independent media and civic organizations. Because domestic sources of funding are almost non-existent, Belarusian civil society is almost entirely dependent on outside sources such as the Soros Foundation. Without its support, the majority of these organizations may be forced to cease their operations.

Belarusian Patriotic Youth Union

The Belarusian Patriotic Youth Union (BPSM), called Direct Action until spring 1997, is a pro-presidential, government-funded youth organization. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki finds this organization alarming because the government may use it as a tool to attack its opponents and thereby curtail political and civil rights and freedoms. An informational pamphlet, which was handed out last year by Direct Action at universities, institutes and schools, poses the question: "Why do all normal young people join Direct Action these days?" The rest of the pamphlet gives a variety of answers to this question. A full translation of the pamphlet is appended (see appendix B), some of the most troubling points are reproduced below:

"Direct Action:. . .

· Will suppress opponents ruthlessly;. . .

· Will destroy opponents when they hinder the organization;. . .

· Is not afraid of the ridiculous opposition which lives on gifts from Western funds. . . "

Excerpts from a letter written by BPSM/Direct Action leaders to President Lukashenka, published in the February 14-21, 1997, edition of Svobodnye Novosti - Plyus (Free News Plus) also give cause for concern. The letter expresses the wish of the organization's leaders that President Lukashenka become the leader of the entire former Soviet Union, "from Brest to Vladivostok," and that a new ideology be built around the personality of President Lukashenka:

Any opposition to the state and its leader is in fact opposition to the most fundamental interests of the nation. Many institutions of the false democracy (the damaging influence of part of it has, thank God, been neutralized by the new constitution). . . , we mean first and foremost, the irresponsible press, "national representatives" (who buy their mandates for money), lobbyist business men, andother unions and clubs, foreign funds, pseudo-religious sects, and activists of the "non-formal alternative youth culture."

The pamphlet and letter are especially alarming if one considers that BPSM/Direct Action receives very substantial support from the authorities. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki was informed by various sources that universities, institutes and other educational institutions were ordered to provide offices to BPSM/Direct Action, and that representatives of the organization were provided with faxes and security guards for their offices, and cars, pagers, and mobile telephones to travel around the country to recruit new members. BPSM/Direct Action has also been given radio wave length 101.2, on which the independent Belarusian radio station used to broadcast. Apparently, the use of that wave length no longer interferes with police frequencies, as it had when it belonged to Radio 101.2.88

81 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial interview, Irina Grushevaya, Minsk, April 3, 1997. Unless otherwise stated, the information in this section was obtained during this interview. 82 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki telephone interview, Gennady Grushevoy, Minsk, June 2, 1997. 83 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial interview, Irina Grushevaya, Minsk, April 3, 1997. 84 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial interview, Olga Abramova, Director of the International Educational Program of the East-West Center for Strategic Initiative, Minsk, April 1, 1997. 85 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki telephone interview, Olga Abramova, Director of the International Educational Program of the East-West Center for Strategic Initiative, Minsk, July 17, 1997. 86 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial interview, anonymous NGO representative, Minsk, April 2, 1997. 87 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial interview, Ales Antipenko, Executive Director of the Belarusian Soros Foundation, and Galina Leonova, legal advisor, Minsk, April 2, 1997. 88 See above, "Monopolizing the Media and Information Flows."