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Belarus FOREIGN RELATIONS
By late 1992, more than 100 countries had recognized
Belarus,
and nearly seventy of them had established some level of
diplomatic relations with it. Belarus had a limited number
of
embassies abroad because its diplomatic activities, as all
other
phases of life, were severely constrained by economic
hardships.
There was also a shortage of experienced diplomats who
were
Belarusian citizens; international relations had been the
purview
of Moscow during the Soviet era and continued to be mainly
the
purview of ethnic Russians residing in, but not citizens
of,
Belarus.
In 1995 Belarus was a member of a number of
international
organizations, including the United Nations (UN) (of which
it was
a founding member), the World Bank, the International
Monetary
Fund, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE;
until
January 1995 known as the Conference on Security and
Cooperation
in Europe), the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, and
the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Belarus
also has observer status at the General Agreement on
Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade
Organization
(WTO). However, the Council of Europe in 1995 declared
Belarus to
be ineligible for membership in the Council of Europe
because of
shortcomings in its elections and its election laws,
including
restrictions on mass media coverage of the spring 1995
parliamentary campaign and restrictions on candidates'
campaign
expenditures.
Belarusian authorities, particularly the Ministry of
Foreign
Affairs, have been trying to promote the widest possible
contacts
with Belarusians living abroad (and particularly in the
West),
with an eye to developing economic and cultural
cooperation. The
Belarusian domestic media have devoted an increasing
amount of
space to the life of émigrés, including their past and
present
activities. A number of cultural exchanges, conferences,
and
joint ventures took place during the early 1990s; a World
Reunion
of Belarusians was held in the republic's capital in 1993.
But not everybody in the republic concurs with these
initiatives. From the ultraconservatives came
denunciations of
the émigrés for their alleged collaboration with the Nazis
during
World War II and their employment by the United States
Central
Intelligence Agency. However, the democratic opposition
groups,
including the BPF, have engaged in their own cooperative
efforts
with Belarusian émigré organizations, through which they
have
reached out for contacts with Western politicians and
governments.
Data as of June 1995
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