Belarusian authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has been black-listed by the European Union and the US, who expressed outrage at the continual suppression of the opposition in the former Soviet state.
Lukashenko joins the ranks of international pariah, including President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the Burmese junta, already on the EU visa travel ban list.
At a Brussels summit on Friday March 24, the EU leaders indicated they would impose visa bans on senior Belarusian officials. Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Meller said the measures would take effect around April 10 and may involve more than a dozen people.
"It's a penalty for [Lukashenko's] sins. This is a fight of good against evil," he said in an AFP report.
The US echoed the European directive, also pledging to take parallel sanctions, including "targeted travel restrictions and financial sanctions", with plans to freeze Belarusian bank accounts abroad.
Response to crackdown
The defiant call for sanctions against Belarus was a direct response to last week's violent crackdown on the opposition protesters, who rallied against the allegedly rigged March 19 presidential elections. Lukashenko secured a landslide victory with an official 82.6 per cent of the vote, denounced as a farce by the opposition and criticized in the West as undemocratic.
Armed police stormed the opposition tent camp in the capital Minsk early Friday morning March 24. According to eye-witness accounts at least 150 demonstrators were hurled into waiting trucks and taken to jail. Some who escaped or were freed said they were beaten by police, reported the AFP news service.
The opposition's main election candidate Alexander Milinkevich condemned the actions of the police.
"The authorities are destroying freedom, truth and justice…this shows the essence of the regime that has been established in Belarus," Milinkevich told AP.
Following the poll thousands of opposition supporters staged an unprecedented five-day sit-in appeal at October Square in Minsk. The day of the elections some 10,000 protesters were present – an enormous turnout in a country where dissent is heavily suppressed.
Speaking early Saturday outside the jail where many of the protesters were taken from the tent camp, Milinkevich vowed to press ahead with a major demonstration on Saturday March 25, marking the anniversary of Belarus' first independence declaration in 1918.
However, the demonstration was heavily blocked by the police from entering the central October Square, forcing the crowd of around 1000 to move to a nearby park. They chanted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!" demanding a re-run of the election.
Strange allies
China, Cuba and Russia are the most prominent countries to have given their support to Lukashenko and approval of the way the election was conducted. Moscow has accepted the election results and congratulated Mr Lukashenko on winning a third five-year presidential term.
In 2004 Lukashenko has changed the constitution to be able to run for the third term. He has ruled the country, sandwiched between Poland and Russia, for 12 years with an iron fist, reviving the past Soviet-style tactics.
Dissidents have been suppressed, media freedoms denied, private businesses are virtually non-existent, while thousands have simply disappeared under his autocratic leadership. Insulting the president, even in jest, carries a prison sentence.
Belarus remains heavily dependent on Russian gas to meet its energy needs. Although Russia increased the price of gas supplied to several republics of the former Soviet Union at the beginning of 2006, the tariff remained the same for Belarus as it was in 2005.
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