Belarus: NGOs Deny Plot to Overthrow Govt

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- Slovak NGOs have dismissed claims by the Russian secret service that they and other international groups have met to prepare the ground for a revolution in Belarus.

Nikolai Patrushev, director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor organisation to the KGB, said Thursday that international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had met in the Slovak capital late last year during Ukraine's Orange Revolution to plan the downfall of the regime of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko.


Vladimir Putin (l) and Nikolai Patrushev
Speaking in the Russian state Duma May 12 he said that preparations were being made for a peaceful revolution similar to the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. He spoke of plans to use NGOs to bring ”orange functionaries” into Belarus to advise people on mounting a revolution.

He also claimed that five million dollars had been put aside by various western organisations to fund the revolution and set up a new post-Lukashenko government.

But Slovak NGOs have dismissed Patrushev's statements as ”nonsense” and called on the Slovak foreign ministry to raise the issue with Moscow.

Pavol Demes, head of the German Marshall Fund for Central and Eastern Europe, told the Slovak daily Pravda: ”I am surprised by the nonsense of this baseless statement. I do not know of any subversive meeting which could confirm these accusations.”

Balazs Jarabik from the Slovak Pontis Foundation which provides support for the Belarussian opposition told the Slovak daily Sme: ”We have very good relations with the Belarussian opposition but these statements are the product of fantasy.”

The Slovak Foreign Ministry has refused to comment on the FSB director's statements, and the Slovak secret service has said it is unaware of any such meeting having taken place in Slovakia.

On Friday night the Slovak foreign ministry said it had called the Russian charge d'affairs in Slovakia, Yuri Chingovatov, for a meeting to explain the comments made by the FSB director.

The Slovak government has publicly declared its support for the Belarussian opposition.

Many analysts believe that the statements are evidence of a growing concern in the Kremlin at a weakening influence in the affairs of its neighbours and of the potential for the recent revolutions in places like Georgia and the Ukraine to spread to other post-Soviet states.

Western observers have pointed to the violent revolution in Tajikistan in March as evidence not just of the instability of the regions around Russia but also of the diminishing influence Moscow appears to have in such places.

Worryingly also for NGOs, Patrushev said new legislation would be proposed to the Duma in the near future on regulating the activities of foreign NGOs in Russia. He did not say what the legislation would involve.

”Imperfect legislation and a lack of efficient mechanisms for state oversight creates a fertile ground for conducting intelligence operations disguised as charity and other activities,” he said.

The FSB has already suggested that volunteers for the U.S. Peace Corps, which operated in Russia until 2003, had acted as spies - a charge the organisation denied.

In his speech to the Duma, Patrushev said NGO workers were being used by foreign secret services as spies to gather information.

The statements come at a time when NGOs in and outside Russia are becoming increasingly concerned over the Kremlin's stance towards Russia's third sector.

In February this year just before U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for a summit in Bratislava, an international group of scholars, human rights leaders, democracy activists, and former government officials called on Bush to encourage Putin to ”ease regulations on funding non-governmental organisations and end the harassment of Western-funded democracy and rights NGOs.”

Balazs Jarabik from the Slovak Pontis Foundation said Russia would not be able to stop any revolutions by restricting the activities of NGOs.

”No non-governmental organisation can import a revolution. Russians still do not understand what civil society is,” he told Sme.

Opposition leaders in Belarus have said they do not support a revolution in the former Soviet state.

”A change in government will certainly take place but legally. We do not believe in coup d'etats,” deputy head of the opposition Belarussian National Front Ales Michalevic told Sme.

Source: Inter Press Service