OSCE Unbound

The Belarusian KGB's Outrageous Lies

Oh, dear God. I see the Belarusian government isn't content to just publish lies and false innuendos in its state-controlled media like the aptly-named Sovetskaya Belorussiya, or let it spill over into the Kremlin-controlled Russian press, but now has published this false claim that I gave money to the Belarusian opposition on the official Belarusian government website.

So let's go over it again, shall we?

I have not given any $211,000 or any other amount to Charter 97 or any other opposition group for this election.

I don't have anywhere near anything like $211,000 as an individual.

I do not have access to any funds like that as a grant from any foundation or any other individual or government.

I do not work in any grant-giving capacity of any sort; I'm a freelance writer and translator.

The claim says I am an employee of "U.S. Helsinki Watch," which is the old name for the organization Human Rights Watch, where I worked...20 years ago (from 1980-1990), and haven't worked there since.

HRW isn't a grant-giving organization, and has no programs in Belarus.

So this entire claim is fictional -- and of course, libelous. You would think most normal people bothering to follow Belarus would understand that I couldn't possibly have given or gotten to give such an amount (or any amount) of funds to somehow launch a conspiracy around the recent presidential elections, but there are people who see this and think "hmm" -- and to that extent it may harm my reputation or even livlihood.

The fact is, if I *did* have such funds -- say, by winning the lottery -- I'd be happy to give them to Belarusian groups!

Because there's nothing illegal about such activities, and indeed it would be a legitimate and much-needed gift and good deed to help independent media in this country and independent civic groups.

Why is the regime putting out this fiction?!

I have no idea. As I said -- I didn't give any such grant and don't have it to give.

What is this false claim based on?

I have no idea. Perhaps the regime figures that someone who in fact does have no organizational affiliation, and hasn't been to Belarus in some time, is someone on whom it is easy to pin a fake claim of conspiracy -- it's not like the other organizations mentioned that have people to come forward and vouch for them.

But I'm at the top of the list! How could this be? What could this be about? I'm told by someone I ran into on the Internet named Denis Baranov, who claims to be "in the know" about such matters, that if a foreigner is mentioned so specifically by name, they must "have something on him".

Well, it's not up to me to sit and speculate about the various ways I *might* be guilty of such a thing. Again, it's in that realm of "proving you are not a camel".

If this were some sort of normal country (and it's not, or we wouldn't be having this conversation), I'd consider trying to get a lawyer, and get independently audited bank statements and letters attesting to my character and copies of all my emails and correspondence certified by some independent auditor...but that's absurd. We're not dealing with a normal government here -- it's fake.

No doubt some sort of concoction is being put together that will somehow be based on the fact that I have written about Charter 97 and other groups and corresponded with them and translated their materials.

The good news about all this is that if this is as good as they got -- the KGB doesn't have a case. If *this* is what they have as proof of some "conspiracy" to "take over the government" that is "funded from abroad" -- and I'm here to tell you how fake it is (and others could attest to this), then I guess they are having trouble coming up with evidence. If, out of a list of foreign conspirators, *I'm* at the top, then this is an awfully, awfully lame and pathetic case. I mean, we were told about German and Polish intrigues and millions of euros...how is it that somehow there isn't, oh, I dunno, Hans-Georg Wieck at the top of this list, instead of me?!

I've also noticed something else about this, that jumped out at me more in the shorter version the Russian RIA Novosti ran: all the threads of this financial "conspiracy" seem to have been in the hands of a man who is now dead: Oleg Bebenin.

Oleg was found dead in September in what was said to be a suicide. Friends and family do not believe it was a suicide. I don't either, having known Oleg for years and never found him to be depressive or irrational, and always found him to be cheerful and reliable.

So, neat trick, that, pin everything on a dead man who can't defend himself. Awfully, um, courageous of you, Lukashenka.

It occurred to me -- we have to be prepared for anything -- that the regime could be thinking up some really dirty story here, and claim that somehow the opposition fought over money, and that perhaps in fact Oleg was killed -- but by one of his own or by a rival group in the opposition. I'll say that seems highly unlikely to me. For one, the groups were all pretty cooperative, surprisingly. For two, the people left willing to enter presidential races are a very hardened and seasoned bunch that have been through every kind of harassment (and are going through it again, now) and have been under a spotlight and a microscope as to their character and deeds for many difficult years. So I don't buy such a version.

It also occurred to me that a KGB-set up, or even some opposition figure's caper, could be involved, whereby this "$211,000" (such a precise number!) could have been claimed to have come from me, as a cover story, but really came from somewhere else. Moscow gold! Berlin gold! Um...Caracus gold?

Apparently some of the claims made in these articles are false, and some are true (and that's often how the KGB has worked, making a mixture of both to try to make it more plausible).

So some of the groups or agencies listed did give grants to Belarus -- and have been interviewed by Voice of America acknowledging this fact. In fact, I was contacted for that very VOA story but happened to be traveling and didn't get back to the reporter in time to get into the story.

The gist of the responses by those like NED or IRI who said they did give grants to Belarus was that they gave money for legitimate purposes that had to do with education and publications, and that this was not somehow a plot to overthrow the government.

BTW, isn't it time to ask, that if this incumbent really had locked in 80 percent of the population's support, and was so beloved, why does he need to cook up this huge conspiracy case and fret and fume about plots everywhere against him? He would laugh them off and ignore them if he really had this support. Guess he doesn't.

Each time this debate is had, on Twitter or forums or the comments sections on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty articles, some regime tool comes along like the fake "NJ Smith" who claims that there's this awful thing being done, illegally helping another country's opposition in elections. "NJ Smith" of course is a play on "Congressman Smith of New Jersey" who in fact has been very supportive of Belarus and helped sponsor Belarusian democracy in the past; hence the KGB propaganda pattern to try to discredit the representative by planting another meme around the words "NJ" and "Smith".

So let's reiterate it again: there is nothing wrong with helping elections abroad. This is considered normal, natural, and needed development work. For example, millions were provided by UNDP to assist the referendum in Kyrgyzstan. Not even the lurid tendentious press has come forward to claim that somehow these UN millions were a "conspiracy". Various government and NGO operations provided assistance in the recent Sudanese referendum. Democracy promotions and election training, activities, education, publications -- these are all perfectly fine. In developing countries, and countries with dysfunctional communists pasts like Belarus, it's understood that you need to help level the playing field by providing support to civil society. This isn't a crime. It's not against U.S. or European law. European political parties have even more latitude in how they help other fellow parties abroad. It's only in the overheated and paranoid imaginations of the Belarusian police state that these normal activities can be converted to something "evil".

We've heard in great detail how people bought tents, that they planned to put up on the square, just as they did in Kiev, during the Orange Revolution. So what? I wouldn't want people to freeze. When there are grave injusticies, people sometimes have to hold long demonstrations. I see no evidence that there was any violence planned or used in these demonstrations -- except by the police and riot troops and KGB. They were the ones doing the storming.

It's especially absurd now that Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and other countries are now in flames with revolutions, largely assisted by the Qatar-funded television company Al Jazeera, to fuss about some NED grant for Belarus. I *do* find it interesting that many Western government leaders and commentators and leftist activists have an awful lot of time for revolutions where people demonstratively threw rocks and burned cars, and where Islamists may be waiting in the wings to try to take over to install even more oppressive regimes that would threaten secular society, yet they were fretting about alleged violence in Belarus, where a door was broken down by a police provocateur, and where the most extreme of the political parties might...make Belarusian the dominant language or...nationalize a factory. Honestly, the global double standard on these things has been breath-taking.

So far, with the US and EU threatening sanctions, and possibly greater punishments than they have in the past, the Belarusian authorities have begun doling out one political prisoner at a time -- they have at least 37 waiting trial on serious charges, and have rounded up many hundreds more who served or will serve short-term sentences or suffer job loss or expulsion from university.

Those who are the made trading partners of Belarus -- Germany, Russia, Poland and some others -- need to keep their eye on the ball here, and insist that all of these prisoners are let go and the charges dropped -- and of course, a long list of other basic human rights that are not likely to be forthcoming until indeed Lukashenka gets gone. Russia in particular is in a position to send a clear message -- not that the Kremlin is hardly a human rights peg to hang your hat on. Even so, it has leverage and can use it for good and should become responsible and feel some shame for propping up this dictator just like the U.S. can feel shame for propping up Mubarak.

And the same goes for Germany and Poland and others that actually go business with Minsk -- and feel they have to do business for the sake of energy security.

I continue to maintain that since these two countries in particular were willing to create an aid package of 3.9 billion euro if Lukashenka held fair elections, that they have to be willing to spend this kind of money to help the opposition and ordinary people now that clearly he hasn't done that. That was the piece that wasn't made clear, and that's why now Lukashenka can concoct stories about plots and putsches organized from abroad. I hope these and other neighboring countries are doing everything possible to help such groups as remain, and to take in refugees and provide others with educational and job opportunities abroad.

Ultimately, this outrageous lie and all the others the regime is telling are a sign of weakness, not strength. And they should serve as a cue to everyone to step up the pressure, not lessen it, and certainly not dither about whether "colour revolutions" are legitimate or whether it is somehow "wrong" to show solidarity with democrats abroad and help them. Shouldn't the events in Cairo and elsewhere in the world now tell us this, more than anything?

 

Refuting a Bold and Brazen Lie from the Belarusian KGB

I was surprised today to have several people send me a link to an article in the Belarusian state-controlled media claiming that I am bankrolling the Belarusian opposition to the tune of $211,000 (!).

Wow! I wish!

This online newspaper is still very aptly titled Sovetskaya Belarus. I'll say!

Unfortunately for the opposition, I haven't given any such grant or indeed any grant at all to Charter 97, as the article claims, or any other groups or persons. I simply don't have anything remotely like that kind of money, nor am I in any position to give out grants (too bad!).

The article also says that I'm from "American Helsinki Watch" -- which is the name of the organization I worked at from 1980-1990 -- now known as Human Rights Watch, an organization that isn't a grant-giving body, either, and isn't involved within Belarus.

It's truly bizarre, such a precise number like that -- $211,000 -- that I wonder where they could have gotten it.

I sure didn't give any grant like that, and frankly, I doubt that anyone did -- Charter 97 and other groups in Belarus, and the presidential campaigns, had only very modest support. Indeed, if they had the 3.9 billion euro promised by the Polish and German foreign ministers to Lukashenka if he held fair elections -- and had it well before these so-called "fair elections" -- we might not be having this conversation right now, while our friends like Andrei Sannikov are sitting in the KGB prison.

About 13 years ago, when Charter 97 first was formed, I was head of the International League for Human Rights (where I worked from 1997-2002).  I recall that we invited Charter 97 to become an affiliate, like dozens of other affliates around the world. This absolutely infuriated the government of Belarus, and they even dispatched a diplomat from their UN mission to show up at our office at the time to threaten us with a legal complaint to the New York State attorney general (!) to get our non-profit status revoked because we were now operating as a "foreign lobby" without declaration.

That's how they viewed innocent, legal, *rightful* activity that involved documenting and publicizing human rights violations in collaboration with a local NGO. They thought they could deal with us in the United States the way they deal with people in their own country -- with brute intimidation and force. We ignored them. You are allowed to have foreign affiliates.  All good.

At that time I believe we had funds of something like $25,000 specifically for this project which was used for computers and going to UN and OSCE meetings to make the case for human rights in Belarus. But that was a long time ago, and I don't think that's where this current concoction comes from at all -- it doesn't make sense.

I've never in my life had any grant of this size of "$211,000" myself, let alone had it somehow to give to anyone else. For years, I have worked as a freelancer with a modest income that is a fraction of this amount.

As I look at the list of other "financiers," I have no idea if any of those claims are true, but I couldn't help thinking this: and what if they are?!

All of them are perfectly fine organizations -- Frontline, which defends human rights defenders, the Norwegian Helsinki Group and so on. If they had 6,000 euros or $98,000 to give to a good group like Charter 97 in Belarus -- what of it? That's a perfectly legal thing to do -- at least in the free world, in a normal country.  The work that Charter 97 and other groups in Belarus do is open and transparent -- you can see for yourself by opening up their website what they do. Funding their website and publications and meetings would be a *good* thing, if you could. I wish indeed I did have a quarter of a million dollars to give to this worthy cause -- but I don't, and never had, and never gave anybody a dime to help them in this last election -- more's the pity.

And those who could have afforded it didn't either -- that's the real tragedy.

The article goes on to provide even more speculative information, making claims about the U.S. government-funded foundations National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute, both organizations that do give grants for training and education during elections -- and do so lawfully and legally, despite the sinister spin the Belarusian government is trying to place on it. Here the KGB (I'm not going to pretend this is a "journalist") recites a conversation they unabashedly describe as having been obtained from Skype -- so much for the common belief that Skype calls or instant-messaging can't be hacked by the KGB -- if it is true. Yet as with other claims in the piece, there is a lot of vagueness and insinuation that are not likely backed by reality. Two million dollars for the Belarusian opposition?! In your dreams.

As for the fact that Sannikov, coordinator of Charter 97, and others mentioned ran in the absurdly unfair presidential elections with 9 other candidates, there isn't anything immoral or wrong about helping their groups or web sites while they are engaging in such a civic activity, either. We all get that such a presidential "election" is more like an opportunity for organizing a social movement, not some authentic means of achieving power. Surely the results --jailing and beating for most of the candidates! -- should illustrate that, if other factors like the mere three months to prepare and lack of normal access to broadcasting don't.

I hope if those other foreigners *did* give these grants (and the stories about them could be as made up as the one about me), they don't feel ashamed or somehow spooked by this curious revelation, which, if true, could only come from the KGB reading people's e-mails or bugging their phone conversations or digging in their bank accounts, which is the real illegal and immoral activity here.

This bald-faced and big lie about me is especially pernicious because when somebody's actual name is used, and a precise figure, and even the name of something that sounds like an authentic organization, many people believe it -- and it's very hard to undo.