Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MINSK, Belarus — On 3 of August, Swedish ambassador, Stefan Eriksson, was expelled from Belarus by President Alexander Lukashanko.  The action led to a number of outbursts.

According to the EU Observer, Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, tweeted that Eriksson was expelled for being “too supportive of human rights.”  Bildt ended his posting by stating, “Outrageous.  Shows nature of regime.”

The sudden departure of Eriksson is certainly questionable.  It comes suspiciously soon after President Lukashanko’s firing of two security chiefs, on 1 August, for allowing an invasion into the Belarusian air space during the “teddy bear incident.”

This “teddy bear incident” occurred on 4 July, when a Swedish PR firm air-dropped hundreds of teddy bears into Belarus with messages that called for freedom of speech.  For weeks following the incident Belarusian officials denied that such an event took place.

Once the incident was confirmed, the stunt’s organizer, Per Cromwell, made it clear that the Swedish ambassador was not a part of the plans and that he had not even been contacted.

President Lukashanko and his administration are adamant that Eriksson was not expelled, it was simply that his accreditation was not extended.  Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Andrei Savinykh, told Reuters, in a telephone interview, that Eriksson’s work was not strengthening the Belarusian-Swedish relationship but rather harming it.

Swedish foreign minister Bildt claims that the incidents cited by Belarus to show Eriksson’s negative effect on bilateral relations are ridiculous.  Bildt said those reasons included Eriksson’s meeting with opposition leaders and the fact that the Swedish ambassador donated books on human rights to a Minsk university library.

This is not the first time that Belarus has expelled foreign diplomats.  Earlier, in February, the EU and Polish ambassadors to Minsk were pushed out when the EU imposed sanctions on a close friend of President Lukashenko.

Back in 1998, President Lukashenko went so far as to cut off water and weld shut the gates to the US envoy’s residence.  At the time the residential compound was housing EU and US diplomats but Lukashenko wanted to reside there himself.  In 1999, the ambassadors returned once a pledge was made by Lukashenko to respect the rights of foreign diplomats.

For now, the Swedish government has stated that the Belarusian diplomats, currently in Stockholm, were asked to leave.  Further diplomatic envoys from Belarus to Sweden will also be turned away.  Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said that this action by Belarus will be referred to the EU Political and Security Committee for consideration as to what is “appropriate EU measures.”

 

For further information, please see:

Chicago Tribune — Belarus Expels Swedish Ambassador, EU Weighs Response — 3 August 2012

Euro News — Belarus: Teddy Bear Drop Claims Swedish Victim — 3 August 2012

EU Observer  — Belarus Expels Swedish Ambassador After Teddy Bear Fiasco — 3 August 2012

Ria Novosti — Belarus Denies Expelling Swedish Ambassador — 3 August 2012

Press Release
World Affairs — 2 August 2012

Two days before leaving for the August recess, the leaders of the US House of Representatives announced that the two interconnected Russia bills—the extension of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) and the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which proposes to sanction Russian human rights violators by denying them US visas and freezing their US assets—will not be considered on the floor until September and, most likely, until the lame-duck session after the November election. One of the key reasons, according to several sources on the Hill, is the unwillingness of some Republican lawmakers to extend PNTR, which they consider “a gift to Vladimir Putin.” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested that PNTR would constitute “yet another concession to a regime that abuses the human rights of its citizens,” urging her colleagues to pass the Magnitsky Act on its own.

The reality is that the Magnitsky Act, opposed by the White House (in unison with the Kremlin) from the very beginning, can only become law if connected with PNTR. The choice, in this case, is both or neither. PNTR would not represent any kind of “gift” or “concession” to Putin. Russia is set to join the World Trade Organization on August 22nd regardless of what the US Congress does. After that date, the only ones who would be hurt by the lack of PNTR with Russia are US exporters. Furthermore, the retention of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendement, which deals with the (non-existent) emigration restrictions in the (non-existent) Soviet Union, does not in the least bother the Kremlin leaders. In fact, it allows them to portray the US as “anti-Russian” for maintaining sanctions that are no longer relevant.

What would be a gift to Vladimir Putin is the failure to pass the Magnitsky Act—a bill that directly addresses the very real (and very grave) problems with the rule of law in today’s Russia, and which establishes much-needed personal accountability for Kremlin officials complicit in corruption and human rights violations. The nervous reaction from Moscow shows beyond doubt how afraid the Putin regime is of this bill becoming law. In fact, Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, has publicly stated that, given this choice, the Kremlin would prefer to keep Jackson-Vanik. Conversely, the leaders of Russia’s democratic opposition (including Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, and Garry Kasparov) have publicly advocated replacing the 1974 amendment with the Magnitsky Act. As Nemtsov and Kasparov argued in a recent article, “replacing Jackson-Vanik with [Magnitsky] would promote better relations between the people of the US and Russia while refusing to provide aid and comfort to a tyrant and his regime.”

The time is running out. Delaying consideration of the PNTR/Magnitsky package increases the likelihood not only of a lack of place on the legislative schedule, but also of a post-election White House veto. It would be ironic if those who do not want to provide any “concessions” to Putin would hand him the greatest victory of all.