EU Threatens Sanctions on Belarus, Doing Its Part for Regime Change

Aug. 15, 2020 (EIRNS)—A meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers on Aug. 14 issued a statement that they consider the Belarus elections as having been “neither free nor fair” and that the “results to have been falsified.” They then called on Belarusian authorities to accept an EU proposal to support establishing a dialogue between the political authorities, opposition and broader society. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell will begin work on the proposal immediately. The issue will be taken up at the EU foreign ministers’ informal meeting in Berlin on Aug. 27-28.

Accusations of human rights abuse are being made by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus Anaïs Marin, who happens to be a fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House in London. A French citizen, she joined the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia program as an associate fellow in December 2019. In 2018 she was appointed UN special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko’s rival in the presidential elections, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who cobbled together 10% of the vote in an 84% voter turnout, and, proclaiming she had won the election, fled to Lithuania, whence she announced the initiation of the Coordination Council for transfer of power. This council would include members of civil society, famous Belarusians and true professionals of their trades. She proclaimed the government should cooperate.

She said she entrusted her authorized representative Olga Kovalkova and lawyer Maxim Znak with collecting applications to join the council from organizations and citizen associations.

Kovalkova, is co-chair of the Organizing Committee of the Belarus Christian Democracy, and ran as a pre-candidate. By profession she is a nurse. Maxim Znak is a partner in the prestigious Minsk law firm Borovtsov & Salei. Both the firm’s founder Vassili Salei and its managing partner, Alexander Botian, had been judges in the Soviet Union; after which they went to the U.S. to further their law studies, and both worked for the top New York City-based law firm, Chadbourne & Parke. The current partnership has many of the top U.S. companies that now operate in Belarus, as clients.