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Belarus Poland
Once Belarus declared its independence, it signed a
number of
agreements with Poland, including ones on diplomatic
relations
and a consular convention, fighting crime, creating a
commercial
bank to finance bilateral trade, establishing new
border-crossing
points, and supporting investment opportunities in the two
countries. Polish president Lech Walesa and Belarusian
parliamentary chairman Stanislaw Shushkyevich signed a
bilateral
friendship and cooperation treaty during the latter's
visit to
Warsaw in June 1992. Military and economic agreements were
signed
in 1993.
In 1994 approximately 300,000 ethnic Belarusians lived
in
Poland, and 418,000 ethnic Poles lived in Belarus. In
neither
country are there any obstacles to the ethnic minority's
participation in political life. In Belarus most ethnic
Poles
supported the drive for Belarusian independence and were
not seen
as a threat to Belarus; the government raised no obstacles
to the
Poles' acquisition of Belarusian citizenship. The ethnic
Belarusians in Poland live mainly in the Bialystok region,
one of
the poorest areas of the country, but new economic
cooperation
between Belarus and Poland and specific obligations taken
on by
Poland are sure to effect changes, if only modestly.
The arena of most disagreements between Poles and
Belarusians
in the 1990s seemed to be religion. Accusations were made
of
ethnic Polish dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in
Belarus.
Polish priests sometimes served in parishes with little or
no
knowledge of the Belarusian language. But steps were being
taken
by the Roman Catholic archbishop to counter the more
blatant use
of Polish political symbols in the churches
(see Religion
, this
ch.).
Data as of June 1995
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