POLAND: The European Union backed Poland yesterday in its deepening diplomatic conflict with Belarus, whose authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko fears Brussels and Warsaw plan to topple him.
Dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by US officials, Mr Lukashenko presided over a recent expulsion of several Polish diplomats from Belarus and a crackdown on the country's 500,000-strong Polish community.
Warsaw yesterday recalled its ambassador to Belarus after Mr Lukashenko's special forces stormed the headquarters of the Union of Poles in the town of Grodno, near the Polish border, and arrested about 18 people, including the leader of the group.
"At first, the building was encircled by police cars. Then police demanded everybody leave the building. When nobody agreed, special forces stormed the building," said a member of the union. There was an immediate response from Warsaw.
"In the name of common values, we are calling on the European Commission to take decisive steps to help Poland . . . protect its ethnic minority in Belarus," said its foreign minister Adam Rotfeld.
"Human rights abuses and repressions in Belarus are a problem that should find wider international interest. Understanding within the EU of what is happening in Belarus is limited and it is high time to change this."
Brussels was quick to support Poland, which joined the EU last year and has played an increasingly prominent role on its eastern fringe, most notably during the 2004 "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, which saw reformists oust a Moscow-backed old guard.
"We are very worried. This new episode takes place in the context of a growing repression of political parties and non-governmental organisations and also independent media in Belarus," said European Commission spokesman Amadeu Tardio.
Top US officials have publicly targeted next year's parliamentary elections in Belarus as a chance to oust Mr Lukashenko, an abrasive former collective farm boss, who has ruled his 10 million people since 1994.
"Lukashenko is continuing the Soviet tradition of looking for an enemy," said Stanislav Shushkevich, who was chairman of the Belarussian parliament after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and now lectures at universities in Poland. "The last dictator in Europe is frightened by the events in Ukraine."