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BELARUS
I. US
official encourages plans for Baltic Waves Radio.
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has extended
his gratitude to his Lithuanian counterpart Valdas
Adamkus and Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas for
adopting a “strict position” with regard to
plans to set up a radio station broadcasting to Belarus,
Interfax news agency reported from Minsk.
The radio
station, which Lithuanian MP Rimantas Pleikys is planning
to set up, would broadcast programmes from the
“position of the extreme right,” Lukashenka has
said. “I would like to extend my
gratitude to President Adamkus for thwarting the attempt
by right-wing radicals to establish an anti-Belarus
centre in Lithuania,” Lukashenka told Lithuanian
Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas during a meeting in
Minsk on [4th March].
The
president’s advisors and the Foreign Ministry have
taken the news about setting up a radio station
broadcasting to Belarus with reservation. However,
no official decision on the matter has been
announced. On [5th March] MP Pleikys told a BNS
correspondent that implementation of the project of
setting up a nonprofit company Baltic Waves Radio
continued. He said that at the moment technical
work and registration as well as application for
frequencies were under way. Meanwhile, US House [of
Representatives] Foreign Affairs Committee chairman
Benjamin Gilman said on [4th March] that plans to set up
a nongovernmental radio station in Lithuania broadcasting
programmes for Belarus should be encouraged. He had
voiced this opinion to the chairman of the Lithuanian
Seimas [parliament], Vytautas Landsbergis, at a meeting
in Washington, Landsbergis’ spokeswoman said.
BNS news agency,
Tallinn, March 9, 1999
II.
President thanks Lithuania for halting radio plans.
[On 5th March] Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka
received Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Algirdas
Saudargas, who is visiting our country on an official
visit. During the meeting, the Belarusian leader
said he was very grateful to the neighbouring
country’s minister for his principled position with
regard to Belarus. Alyaksandr Lukashenka
stressed that Lithuania and Belarus will cooperate in all
areas, first and foremost in the economic and
environmental fields.
Alyaksandr
Lukashenka thanked Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus
and Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas for their firm
stance regarding plans to set up a radio station
[presumably Baltic Waves radio] on Lithuanian territory
which would broadcast to Belarusian regions.
This radio
station, which was intended to be founded by a member of
the Lithuanian parliament, was meant to voice the
position of the far right political forces, Alyaksandr
Lukashenka believes. “Thank President Adamkus
on my behalf for thwarting the right-wing radicals’
attempt to set up an anti-Belarusian centre in
Lithuania,” Alyaksandr Lukashenka told this Baltic
republic’s foreign minister at their meeting in
Minsk [on 5th March].
He also
expressed gratitude to the Lithuanian side for the right
understanding of the matter and for the right perspective
on Belarusian-Russian bilateral relations.
Belarusian Radio First
Programme, Minsk, March 5, 1999
III. Belarus
set to jam Baltic Waves broadcasts.
Belarus is poised to block the projected Russian-language
radio broadcasts from Lithuania in a Soviet-style action,
the coordinator of the Baltic Waves project said.
Rimantas Pleikys, the coordinator, said the official
Belarusian radio channel had unexpectedly started
broadcasting on two frequencies within a 49-metre
shortwave range earmarked for broadcasts of the
nongovernmental radio still in the process of
establishment. The Baltic Waves project is
aimed at providing objective information to the
Russian-speaking population in the Baltic states and to
raise “the iron curtain” drawn on press by
Belarusian authorities.
Pleikys, a
Lithuanian lawmaker, said: “The extremely
aggressive, mutilated sound of the Minsk programme, which
reminds us of the Soviet-style blockages, can be heard on
the 6235 kHz [shortwave] frequency.”
It seems like
the Belarusian authorities are making preparations to
block the Baltic Waves when it is launched, he
said. Belarus has voiced strong objections to the
Baltic Waves radio project, which it called interference
in its internal affairs. The Lithuanian Union of
Journalists has also said it does not support the plan
“to set up a radio station oriented towards foreign
countries on the Lithuanian territory.”
Pleikys has
said the nongovernmental public institution will
broadcast informative programmes for Lithuania’s
Russian and Belarusian ethnic communities. Also,
the broadcasts will be heard on shortwave in
Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, Belarus and all Baltic
states, he said. Britain’s Westminster
Foundation for Democracy has granted 30,000 pounds in
what was the first financial aid for the Baltic Waves
project.
BNS news agency,
Tallinn, February 15, 1999
IV. Belarus
to retaliate against planned Baltic Waves radio.
Vladimir Garkun, the ambassador of Belarus in Vilnius,
told ITAR-TASS on [12th February] that his country
“categorically opposes the establishment on the
territory of Lithuania of a Baltic Waves radio station on
the territory of Lithuania to beam broadcasts at Belarus
and at Russian-speaking audiences in the (three) Baltic
States.” The ambassador said if such a radio
station begins to function, Minsk would immediately react
and take retaliatory measures.
Commenting on
the recent pronouncements by Lithuanian Parliament
Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis that to establish a radio
station “is a private initiative and a normal
thing,” the Belarussian ambassador said that in
actual fact “this is an attempt at a flagrant
interference in the internal affairs of the independent
state which neighbours on Lithuania.”
It was already
reported that the idea of beaming broadcasts at Belarus
from the territory of Lithuania was suggested by Rymantas
Pleikis, one of influential figures of the ruling
conservative party and former minister of communications
and information Science.
His idea is
that a Baltic Waves radio station could beam broadcasts
at Belarus and at Russian-speaking audiences in the three
Baltic States.
It was asserted that the Baltic Waves radio would
broadcast “impartial information” on processes
evolving both in Lithuania and in contiguous countries.
The
Westminster Fund for Democracy (England) has already sent
50,000 US dollars to fund the establishment of the radio
station.
ITAR-TASS news agency
(World Service), Moscow, February 12, 1999
V. Belarus
against plans for Baltic Waves radio from Lithuania.
Belarus has voiced strong opposition to plans to
establish the Baltic Waves radio station [in Lithuania],
which intends to broadcast for Belarus and the
Russian-speaking populations of the Baltic states.
The Belarusian
ambassador to Vilnius, Uladzimir Harkun, has described as
rude interference in the internal affairs of an
independent state the words by the speaker of the
Lithuanian Seimas [parliament], Vytautas Landsbergis, who
said that such a radio station would be a normal thing.
The Lithuanian
media reported earlier that the Lithuanian Foreign
Ministry and the President’s Office were
ill-disposed towards the plans to launch radio broadcasts
aimed at Belarus.
Meanwhile, the
coordinator of the Baltic Waves station, MP Rimantas
Pleikys, says his nongovernmental public institution will
air information programmes for Belarusian and Russian
ethnic communities in Lithuania. In addition, the
same broadcasts on shortwave will be heard not only in
Belarus but also in the Russian Kaliningrad Region,
Latvia and Estonia.
The initiators
of the Baltic Waves have received their first funding
from abroad.
Britain’s
Westminster Foundation for Democracy has donated the
would-be radio station 30,000 pounds.
Lithuanian Radio
(external service), Vilnius, February 11, 1999
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