Madam, - Over recent weeks, the Republic of Belarus has caught the spotlight of the world media, with British Isles journalism, as ever, leading the way in what may figuratively be called headhunting on a large scale. The reason could not be more enticing: just days ago my country held an election for the presidency of the Republic of Belarus - the third one since Belarus gained its independence following the break-up of a world power, the Soviet Union.
Yet in an unsettling world which is largely busy minding its own business, many critics are anxious to teach a lesson or two to the countries felt to be short of democracy. Ironically, at times I come across such critics who do not know much about the location of Belarus nor its history, have never been to my country and are unlikely to become eager to visit. However, these facts do not get in the way of their criticisms, which essentially twist into the creation of some new "arc of danger" involving Belarus.
And this is what I hear and watch spoken of a country - of which I am very much proud to be Ambassador - that lost every third resident during the second World War but fought the enemy no less hard throughout all four years of the fascist occupation, and that suffered massive after-effects of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. Regrettably enough, one of the recently adopted EU governments reckons there should be another storage of radioactive waste a few kilometres off the Belarus border next to its river-rich picturesque resorts. As of now, the pluralistic Europe gave no single negative vote to the scheme, which by default means a go-ahead.
My country under the current President chose to go nuclear-free and volunteered to remove nuclear weapons from its territory. My country made dozens of efforts to bring about stability and security in the region. Belarus recently launched and is now promoting a global initiative on combating the trafficking in persons - an overwhelmingly imperative issue for Eastern Europe. The list just goes on.
Belarus is now doing its best to face economic challenges and thrive - and, as is acknowledged by the high-profile economists,Belarus's success smacks of a miracle. You may, predictably, point to Russian gas subsidies to stress Belarussian defencelesness, but this has nothing to do with what is now going on in Belarus economically.
As for the recent presidential election, we have the opinions of a couple of British election monitors who may be qualified as objective, fair and impartial since they observed the campaign from start to finish. They are positive; nevertheless, sheer negativism has infiltrated the world mass media, despite plenty of CIS and Western monitors' alternative reports.
Supported yet again by its people, my government seeks to forge a better relationship with the West, which is in turn poised to penalise as if sanctions have ever paved the way to something constructive.
Luckily for a European country, nothing revolutionary came about from the attacks of the opposition on March 19th and in the days that followed. Indeed, a dozen London residents advocating the cause of the Belarusian opposition stuck to the Embassy on those days. But isn't it democracy when people use their right to peaceful protest, whether in Kensington Court in London or Oktyabrskaya Square in Minsk or the Sorbonne area of Paris? The only difference is how the mass media are bent on covering the events and the police on ensuring the public order. - Yours, etc,
Dr ALYAKSEI MAZHUKHOU, Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus to Ireland, London W8.