A licence to unleash repression

UNION OF POLES

The Belarusian authorities' battle with the Union of Poles in Belarus is not, and never was, an ethnic issue, but rather a civic one. Lukashenka's government has not abused the linguistic and cultural rights of the Belarusian Poles (who, in fact, tend to speak Belarusian between themselves; indeed, they do so much more often than other Belarusians do). Belarus's 400,000 or so ethnic Poles, about 4% of Belarus's 9.7 million people, are a vital part of the opposition leadership, media and cultural elites – but they are also fully integrated into the mainstream of society, government and business.

To weaken the Poles' non-conformist civic ethic, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in 2005 orchestrated the removal of the opposition-minded leader of the Union of Poles of Belarus (ZPB), Andzelika Borys, closed the ZPB down and cloned a loyalist faction in its stead, the Union of Belarusian Poles (ZBP).

The ZPB survives as an organisation under Borys's leadership and Warsaw recognises it as the sole legitimate representative of Belarus's ethnic Poles. But the ZPB is not recognised by Minsk and its members have routinely been harassed, arrested and interrogated. The 2005conflict reduced contacts between Minsk and Warsaw to almost zero, and was one of the reasons why in 2006 the EU froze the assets of top Belarusian officials and imposed a visa ban on them.

The clash flared up again in January when the pro-government ZBP demanded that the ZPB hand over a building acquired in 1999 by the ZPB in the town of Ivyanets, near Minsk. Riot police took over the court building before the hearing and the court promptly satisfied the ZBP's suit. In addition, Borys and her company have been fined (on unrelated and questionable charges), three other ZPB officials have been jailed, dozens of others have been detained briefly, and ZPB rallies broken up.

One compromise proposed by some politicians in Warsaw is to give both Unions of Poles the same right to exist.