OSCE tries to defuse Belarus crisis

AFP VIENNA

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is seeking to defuse a crisis with Belarus after its envoy to Minsk was expelled, setting a dangerous precedent for the Pan-European security body, diplomats said.

The regime of authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka effectively decapitated the OSCE in Minsk on April 17 by refusing to accredit a new head of mission while not renewing the visa of the interim chief.

The interim mission head, Frenchman Michel Rivollier, had to leave the country on April 15, prompting the crisis with the Vienna-based OSCE.

And Minsk now wants to renegotiate the mandate under which the OSCE set up its mission in 1997, a Belarus diplomat told AFP. Three OSCE envoys are left in Minsk: a Briton, an American and a Moldovan.

U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Stephan Minikes warned bluntly at a hastily-called meeting of the OSCE's permanent council to discuss the crisis, that the move will only deepen Belarus' "self-isolation."

"Continued obstruction of the work of the (mission) not only offends the principles upon which this organization was founded but also most unfortunately sets back Belarus' own desire to end its self-isolation," he said.

The OSCE has long had difficult relations with Minsk, but tension has increased since the re-election of Lukashenko in September 2001 in ballots the OSCE slammed as flawed and undemocratic.

Western diplomats say the latest face-off risks setting a dangerous precedent for the OSCE's other 22 missions on the ground, which carry out a variety of tasks relating to monitoring human rights and democracy.

They specifically allege that Belarus is trying to use the visa issue to negotiate a "precise written mandate" that would allow it to "control the activities of the mission" in Minsk.

"We must avoid this problem spreading and emerging everywhere for different reasons," said one European diplomat.

In the meeting of the OSCE's 55 member states, Belarus was notably supported by Russia and countries from Central Asia, which are themselves highly critical of OSCE missions on their own territory.

Since the OSCE works by consensus, its Portuguese chairman, Joao De Lima Pimentel, avoided confrontational language and agreed to discuss the Minsk mission's "program of action" with the Belarus authorities.

At the same time he insisted that Minsk "clarify the situation of the mission's personnel. We cannot go on like this," he said.

The standoff is not unexpected. Belarus Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov threatened last month to expel the OSCE mission. At the time the Portuguese OSCE chairmanship blasted the threat as "unacceptable."

But now the OSCE is seeking to defuse the conflict. "We are trying to de-escalate the situation," said one European diplomat.

Hans-Georg Wieck, the former German OSCE mission head in Minsk, left the Belarus capital last December after being repeatedly accused of supporting the opposition.

The OSCE designated German diplomat Eberhard Heyken to succeed him, but he has yet to receive accreditation by Minsk.