|
Interview by Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Belarus Sergei Martynov to “Associated Press” News Agency
March 15, 2006, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Minsk
Associated Press:
So we will begin. I guess
you have seen the questions already. To begin with, reading the Foreign
Ministry’s web-site I have seen that Belarus is emphasizing good relations
with neighbouring countries. You are bordering many countries that are
sceptical about Belarus’ commitment to democracy and human rights. Does this
scepticism of your neighbours impede your foreign policy, and what is
Belarus doing to try to overcome this scepticism?
Sergei Martynov:
You are right in terms that
one of the priorities of the Belarusian foreign policy is having good
relationship with the neighbors. In fact we have a goal of having what we
call a “belt of good neighborliness” around Belarus, and we believe that
this belt is very much achieved.
Yes, not many but some of our
neighbors have differences with us on the subjects you mentioned. But we
believe that these differences largely result from the fact that these
nations are members of larger alliances, which have their common foreign
policy or at least aspire to have a common foreign policy. Therefore the
stance of those countries is not always what you might term an independent
stance.
We, of course, respect the
right of any alliance to have its foreign policy, but this also remains the
fact that this is a policy coming from somewhere else, not necessarily from
the neighboring environment.
Another issue is that we
strongly believe, and I believe this sentiment is largely shared also in all
our neighboring countries, that there is an important special nature in
relationship of neighbors, irrespective of differences. And of course that
special relationship is dictated by geography. You don’t choose your
neighbors. You may choose your friends, but you don’t choose your neighbors.
And neighborliness presupposes a different volume of relations, which is not
an abstract requirement but actually a requirement of day-to-day life of the
people of neighboring countries.
And, actually, these
requirements of life dictate the realities of life. And I would explain to
you what I mean. With some of our neighbors, with the majority of them we
have a very important trade relationship, very important for both countries.
For some of these countries this relationship is even more important than it
is for Belarus. For some of these countries, for example, 25 or 30 per cent
of the turnover of their ports is originating from Belarus. For some of
these countries 40 per cent of their railway turnover is originating in
Belarus. This is a fact of life, which they cannot ignore, which their
business communities cannot ignore, which their population cannot ignore.
This provides jobs, profits, etc. in those countries, as well as in Belarus.
So this is what you can term a “dictation of life”, as it were, to continue
to have important substantial good neighborly relations irrespective of
ideological or other differences. And we do hope that our neighbors will all
continue to be guided by those special attitudes towards requirements of
life between neighbors. We very much hope that they will not play games
trying to pose as a small sub-regional superpower.
Associated Press:
I like that phrase.
Sergei Martynov:
Belarus is in favor, to sum
it up, of good neighborly relations with all its neighbors irrespective of
whatever differences we may have on other issues.
Associated Press:
The next question sort of
corresponds with I think what you were talking about some of the neighboring
countries being part of alliances that may be getting their policy from
elsewhere. What do you and other Belarusian diplomats tell the Western
countries – the members of these alliances about their providing funding for
non-governmental organizations such as pro-democracy and civil society
organizations. Is Belarus content that all such funding is improper and
interferes in Belarus’ internal affairs or do you regard it as legitimate
under certain conditions?
Sergei Martynov:
Well, actually, what we tell
our partners is very simple. We tell them the Belarusian legislation on that
was actually inspired if not copied from their own legislation. Legislation
of any decent country prohibits foreign funding of political activities. If
you would check the United States federal law on elections, you would see
there a very clear-cut prohibition of any direct or indirect foreign
contributions, donations or guidance related to any electoral activities at
any level, or any contributions, again direct or indirect, to political
parties, committees of such parties, etc. So, basically, what we have in our
legislation is what the United Sates has in its legislation. It is also what
coincides or is reflective of recommendations which were prepared in the
Council of Europe about the funding of political parties, which also clearly
prohibits foreign financing of political parties.
Now, if a non-governmental
organization is having transparent activities on the territory of Belarus
which fully respects the Belarusian laws and which goal and nature is
acceptable to the Belarusian state, it’s welcome to work. If the goals are
inimical to that, then they are unwelcome guests. But this is also something
which other countries including the United States have in their legislation.
Associated Press:
Well, if I may follow up on
that. So it’s you contention that some of the organizations in Belarus that
have been receiving foreign funding are essentially acting as political
parties, even if they are not political parties in name?
Sergei Martynov:
Yes. They engage in political
activities, in the electoral and pre-electoral activities, which is very
difficult to differentiate from activities of political parties. And,
unfortunately, they are financed by foreign entities, they do publicly
recognize that they are financed by foreign entities, and they are trained
and guided by foreign entities, which, as I said, no decent country could
agree to.
Associated Press:
Well, Belarus is a member of
the OSCE, but it often appears to be at odds with the OSCE. Does Belarus
intend to remain a member of the OSCE and/or try to push for changes in how
the organization operates?
Sergei Martynov:
Well, there is a wrong
assumption in what you stated in the beginning of your question. You said
Belarus is at odds with the OSCE. Belarus cannot be at odds with the OSCE,
because the OSCE is us. Belarus is a full member of the OSCE. So we can talk
about certain differences within the OSCE.
Associated Press:
With other member countries.
Sergei Martynov:
With other member countries,
but not between Belarus and the OSCE. And this is very important. This is
not an esoteric statement, this is a very important political statement. We
are OSCE.
Now, Belarus, being part of
OSCE, does not plan to quit the organization, because we believe this is an
important organization, which has an important mission and a unique
composition and mandate. This is the only pan-European organization. So it
has to continue. In our view, it has to be strengthened. We strongly believe
that this organization should have its own charter, its own rules of
procedures, and be a more meaningful organization than it is so far.
Now we quite often are
critical of OSCE functioning as it is now. And there are several areas where
we insist on OSCE reform. I would also mention that, I believe, Belarus is
one of the players in OSCE with very strong views on that. And I would add
our views, which we have been holding for a number of years already are more
and more widely accepted within OSCE by our friendly countries, and
neighboring countries, for that matter.
Now, areas where we would
like OSCE to change itself.
First, OSCE needs to change
geographic imbalance in its activities. Because if you would look at what
OSCE does, obviously, part of its activities is concentrated almost wholly
to the East of Vienna, which in our view is not right. Usually this is a
mandate, which relates to political issues and human rights issues, etc. But
we do believe that there are ample and important tasks in the same basket,
which relate to the West of Vienna. So this has to be corrected.
The second imbalance which
has to be remedied in OSCE is functional imbalance. In our view, way too
important share is concentrated on issues, which I mentioned. And too little
attention is devoted in OSCE to such issues of the overriding importance as
economic and ecological issues, and military security issues. We do not
stand for eliminating the importance of the so called “third basket”, which
is political issues, issues of protection of rights, etc. This is a very
important basket. Our country pays a lot of importance to this basket. But
there has to be a different balance in that, because economic and ecological
issues relate to what is quite often termed as “new threats” in Europe. So
there has to be much more balance in that.
And, finally, an important
element of the OSCE everyday role is monitoring the electoral activities in
different states. Right now we are hosting a very large OSCE monitoring
mission in Belarus, which we have invited in an open and friendly manner.
But we believe that methods which are employed in such activities are not
only outdated, but they are not objective. They do not provide for an
objective assessment of elections. Therefore we insist on reforming this
part of OSCE activities too. We have stated a couple of years ago that
without a deep reform OSCE as an organization will not have the important
future we wish it to have.
Associated Press:
Could you expand on your
criticism of specifically how the OSCE’s election monitoring methods are
outdated or not objective?
Sergei Martynov:
Well, they are not objective
in many-many ways. I would give examples.
For example, forming OSCE
observation missions. We never ever have in the long-term part of OSCE
observation mission representatives of neighboring countries, who know our
political system well, who understand it much better that representative of
other countries. We deem this unnatural, strange and unacceptable.
Then, until very recently,
the composition of missions, both long-term and short-term, was heavily
dominated by several countries, by very few countries, which is also not
right.
Now then the criteria of
selection of observers. In our view, it is preposterous when selecting
observers for Belarus to have as a prerequisite the knowledge of the English
language. We don’t speck English her in this country. We speak Belarusian
and Russian. So how the criterion should be English speaking? It should be
Russian or Belarusian speaking, probably.
And, then, another issue is
who takes the decision which election has to be observed and which election
has not to be observed? Why OSCE sends 25 monitors to the United States,
where the election was heavily contested and criticized? And why OSCE sends
600 observers to Belarus, which is 50 times smaller than the United States?
No answer to that. Who takes the decision on what should be the verdict on a
particular election? Who discusses that? Nobody discusses that. And this is
not right. So these kind of things need to be changed. We made our views
known in the OSCE, and we will continue to insist on that, along with our
allies.
Associated Press:
This point well taken in the
United States, especially in light of the 2000 elections, when the
candidate who had fewer votes won.
Sergei Martynov:
Exactly. One of the major
criteria of the OSCE concerning elections is direct elections. The United
States does not have direct elections, I mean presidential elections. This
relates to what you have mentioned.
Associated Press:
Moving on. President
Lukashenko a couple of weeks ago, when he was speaking to one of the
military academies, made some statements about how Western countries are
encouraging the young people of Belarus to be selfish, to value their own
convenience and pleasure more than value patriotism and working for the
development of Belarus. That’s a criticism that is often made of Western
countries from many different angles. But I wondered, do you think that
there are somehow basic philosophical differences between how Western
countries approach life philosophy, differences between Belarus and the
West?
Sergei Martynov:
What President Lukashenko
told the young audience you mentioned is actually exactly what President
Kennedy once told a mass audience. He said, President Kennedy said, “Don’t
ask the country what it can do for you. Ask yourself what you can do for
your country”. That was exactly the message of President Lukashenko to young
students of the military academy.
So this, in my view, reveals
exactly, that there is no clash of fundamental philosophies between our two
countries. There is no such thing as a “clash of civilizations” between
Belarus and the West. The values, the principles are the same. Now, the
application of those values and principles could be different and should be
different. It ought to be different, because we are different countries and
different nations. And one country should respect another country’s right to
apply those values in its own way.
Last year, when President
Lukashenko spoke at the General Assembly of the United Nations, he proposed
an initiative that the United Nations should recognize the principle of
diversity of ways of progressive development. That means there is no one
single recipe, which is applicable to each and every country in the world
how it should evolve and develop. Every country, as long as it respects the
basic United Nations Charter principles, is and should be entitled to its
own particular way of progressive development, which corresponds to its
history, its nature, its geography, its psychology, whatever, its economy.
So our proposal is to recognize the diversity of ways of progressive
development of states. And I believe this is an important element of
pluralism internationally, political pluralism internationally.
Associated Press:
Regarding the Sunday’s
election, there has already been a great deal of criticism of the election
preparations from the West. And judging by how the previous elections in CIS
nations have gone over the past couple of years, there is probably going to
be similar criticism after the election. What’s Belarus’ response to these
complaints? Do you believe the West is prejudging the elections before they
happen?
Sergei Martynov:
I will start with the latter
part of your question. Obviously, and a matter of fact, the West prejudges
the nature of elections, so to say. The election is not over yet. It is
going to be held on Sunday. But the verdict is already on the red in
Washington and Brussels. And this is wrong. We cannot agree to that. This is
a clear prejudgment of an event.
Secondly, you mentioned that
the elections in all CIS countries were not deemed as appropriate, whatever.
But we believe that the instrument, the tool of
measuring of those elections, as I mentioned to you in another
question, is a flawed instrument so far. It has to be changed.
And, thirdly, concerning the
upcoming elections, it’s an open secret, and everybody knows, be it in
Minsk, Washington, Brussels, Rome, that the current President, the incumbent
President enjoys overwhelming support of the society in this country. And I
believe one of your, at least one of your colleges in a United Kingdom
newspaper put it right, when he said, “do you expect a President who
increased real incomes in his country by 24 per cent in one year, who
battled down inflation, who increased GNP several times over a five years,
would you expect such a leader to lose an election? Never, ever, ever.
So this is the answer to the
criticism.
Associated Press:
So, the 6 per cent economic
growth that Belarus had last year, is certainly the envy of the United
States and much of the West.
Sergei Martynov:
It was not 6, it was 9,5. And
we had a consistent growth of these proportions for 8 years in a row.
Belarus is the first country from among the former Soviet Union countries,
which broke through the level of GNP of 1990, which is the pre-Soviet Union
collapse level.
Associated Press:
Really, Belarus was the
first?
Sergei Martynov:
It was the first. We are the
first who went to do that. Belarus, even though we don’t have oil or gas
with skyrocketing prices, we have the highest pensions in CIS. We have the
highest students’ stipend in CIS. We have the highest GNP ratio spent for
education and health services. The real income of the population grows by at
least 15 per cent annually in the last five years.
So, the Government and the
President work for the people. The people see that, they feel it and they
appreciate it. And that’s the answer to your question.
Associated Press:
My next question I think
actually goes back to some extent what we were talking about earlier. The
United States and some other Western countries are threatening vague
unspecified punitive actions against Belarus, if the election comes under
question. Does Belarus worry that such actions might leave it isolated or
economically weakened, or is the importance of Belarus economically to its
neighboring countries such that these punitive actions would not have much
effect?
Sergei Martynov:
First of all, we strongly
believe that sanctions as such and economic sanctions in particular do not
solve problems. And there is ample evidence to that, worldwide.
Secondly, we don’t believe
that economic sanctions, which are applied for achieving political goals,
have a nice kind of “smell”. They don’t.
Thirdly, it’s a double-edge
sward. I mentioned to you that neighboring countries are very closely linked
with the Belarusian economy. Probably they may suffer more than we will
suffer.
Also, specific business
people, companies, firms, societies will also suffer losing trade with
Belarus, because our trade with countries in Europe is more than 10 bln
dollars. So this is 10 bln dollars, which someone is going to lose. They’ll
make nobody happy, neither here, nor there.
Next, of course, the European
Union accounts for 44 per cent in our exports. 44 per cent. That means if
sanctions come, then each and every Belarusian family will lose part of its
income. Will they say “thank you” to Brussels and Washington for that? They
surely will not. They will say other things about that. Are the European
Union and the United States interested in that?
I don’t think so. I hope they are not interested in that.
And, finally, what we sell to
the European Union and to the West as a whole is things which are
competitive. Otherwise they would not have been bought. So if they are
competitive in Europe and in the United States, you will believe me, that
they are competitive anywhere in the world.
Associated Press:
So you are saying that
Belarus can seek other markets for the same goods?
Sergei Martynov:
Western Europe is a highly
competitive market. If they are successful there, we can be successful
anywhere. So, the logic and the road of sanctions and punitive action is a
dead-end road. It’s a dead alley.
Associated Press:
One last question. I have
asked you enough about the elections and democracy questions. I’d be
interested in knowing a broader view about what is Belarus’ general foreign
policy goals, and what you see as Belarus’ place in the world, as you are a
comparatively small country, what role do you see Belarus is playing?
Sergei Martynov:
The role we see for Belarus’
foreign policy and for Belarus at large is basically same for foreign policy
of any country. First and above all we have to secure through diplomatic
means the security of the country.
Secondly, we have to create
favorable external conditions for our trade and development. Now in looking
after those goals we of course are guided by how we perceive the role of
Belarus. Belarus is a medium-size European country with an important
economic potential. We are a manufacturing country, and we are a country
which is dependent on foreign trade. And we are a very open economy. Our
ratio between the volume of foreign trade and GNP, which is an indicator of
openness of an economy, is one of the top 10 ratios in Europe. We are a very
open economy. Therefore we are interested in making sure that there is an
unhindered access of and flow of goods throughout Europe and other countries
worldwide.
We are not a country with
global ambitions politically. But we are a country which would like to
protect its economic interests worldwide, to be present in the world markets
everywhere, in as much as we can. And we are working for that in markets not
only like European market, but also in markets like China, South-East Asia,
South of Africa, Latin America, and other markets. This is our goal and this
is what we do. And, eventually, even though we are not a player with global
ambitions, being a mid-size country we are interested in an international
set-up, which will be able to protect the interests of countries like us.
And that means we are interested in a multi-polar world. The unipolar world
does not protect countries like ours. So in that sense we are also playing
with other like-minded countries worldwide to achieve that goal of a
multipolar world.
And, coming back to your first question,
of course, good neighborliness is one of our top priorities in foreign
policies.
|
