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Comments by the
Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on
the statement of the US Department of State Spokesman Richard Boucher of
October 15, 2004
Minsk, October 16, 2004
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus got to know the statement of the
US Department of State Spokesman Richard Boucher of October 15, 2004 on
future elections and referendum in Belarus. As usual, the representative of
the American side at least presents what the United States desire as facts.
Firstly, the general content of the Department of State Spokesman’s comment
creates wrong impression that the OSCE election observer mission which is
presently working in Belarus is monitoring both election and referendum
process. Meanwhile, it is well known that the Office of Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights had officially made a decision not to observe
the referendum due to the lack of funds and, therefore, can not by
definition make any conclusions on that matter. That is why an indirect
attempt of the State Department to present its own assessment of the
referendum, which, besides, has not been held yet, for the opinion of ODIHR
observers is regarded by us as absolutely inappropriate.
Secondly, the Department of State Spokesman, in particular, stated that,
“according to the reports of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe, the current campaign [in Belarus] has been marred with
irregularities”. We do not quite understand which “OSCE reports” the
official Department of State representative had in mind. As far as we know,
two interim reports published so far by the OSCE ODIHR election observer
mission are quite balanced and mainly technical by nature. So their content
does not give any ground for such serious and far-reaching political
conclusions that the American side is trying to impose. Or, maybe, the State
Department is in the possession of other “reports”, of which we are not
aware? In this case we would appreciate our American partners for an
opportunity to get familiar with the content of these documents, as well as
for sharing with us the information on the sources through which they were
obtained.
We are of an opinion that the hurry and persistency of the State
Department’s repeated attempts to question the results of the electoral
campaign in Belarus and its democratic character fully prove the relevance
of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s conclusions that such actions of the
American side are nothing more than exerting pressure on international
observers, directing them towards an a priori negative assessment of the
electoral process in the Republic of Belarus.
Electoral campaign is under way in the United States as well, with the
elections of the US President to be held soon. The conduct of the last
presidential elections in the US gives every reason to doubt the electoral
process in the United States, the conformity of its results with the will of
electors, and the correspondence of the electoral process with the OSCE
criteria. These doubts are well known to everyone in the world.
We will also be carefully observing the forthcoming elections in the United
States.
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