| Belarusian bureaucrats are restricted from traveling abroad President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko yesterday signed a decree regulating foreign business trips of civil servants. Traveling abroad on business is now only possible with the personal consent of the president, and the duration of a business trip abroad should not exceed two days. “A longer period may be set in the decision to send a person on a business trip abroad based on official necessity and ensuring maximum savings of public funds,” the presidential press service said in a statement.
“This is another step towards establishing sole control over the country, as well as strengthening its isolation,” Belarusian sociologist Oleg Manaev noted to Vremya Novostei. -- Contacts of citizens with the uncontrolled environment are limited. Over the past year, a whole category of people has emerged whose travel abroad is hampered. These are students and Chernobyl children. Now representatives of the state bureaucracy have joined them.” Last year, Alexander Lukashenko ordered that children be sent abroad for treatment as little as possible. According to the president, children return from there with a consumerist view of the world.
The leader of the Belarusian United Civil Party, Anatoly Lebedko, emphasized in a conversation with VN: “Lukashenko is consistently and purposefully leading Belarus into the past. In the USSR, all exits and entries were strictly controlled. This policy makes it possible to minimize the risk of regime destruction.” Mr. Lebedko said: “The system created by Lukashenko is inferior compared to the European one. When people are in a closed space, it seems to them that the Belarusian system is the best that humanity has invented. But, faced with life in other countries, they are gradually turning from Lukashenko’s supporters into his opponents. The decision regulating the departure indicates the uncertainty of the authorities before the 2006 presidential elections.”
According to Oleg Manaev, there is another reason for limiting foreign business trips for Belarusian civil servants. “The president himself doesn’t travel too much. And, probably, he is not very pleased when others go, for example, to Washington or Tokyo,” says the sociologist. Anna NAUMOVA, Olga TOMASHEVSKAYA, Minsk |
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