English

Lukashenko orders financing of loyal Union of Writers

Aleksandr Lukashenko has signed a presidential edict that public funds should be allocated to finance the Union of Writers of Belarus (UWB).

The new pro-government organization, the UWB, is seen as an alternative to the Union of Belarusian Writers, which celebrated its 70th anniversary in the summer of 2005 and which government-controlled media outlets have branded as politicized and nationalistic.

By October 10, 2006, the Council of Ministers has been directed to put forward suggestions regarding the payment of salaries to no more than five members of the UWB Board and the heads of the Union's six regional offices and the Minsk city office out of public funds in the "presidential reserve fund."

The edict also provides for the financing of "expenses for the statutory activities of this non-governmental organization," including those connected with travel and accommodation on business trips, utility bills, communications services, equipment purchases, and the promotion of "fiction literature."

The Belarusian leader has also directed that, for the purpose of granting government support to the UWB, the Council of Ministers should earmark funds for the maintenance of the Union in the national budget starting 2007.

In addition, the presidential property management department has been tasked with providing the UWB with offices to house its board on a rental basis and "settling matters concerning the providing of this non-governmental organization with motor vehicles, office equipment and communications means."

The regional executive committees and the Minsk City Executive Committee have been directed to provide premises for the regional and Minsk city offices of the UWB before October 10, 2006, arrange for the payment of salaries to the members of the councils of these departments, except their heads, and finance their "statutory activities."

This spending has been ordered to be earmarked in the local budget starting 2007.

The Union of Belarusian Writers (UBW) was evicted from its longtime office in central Minsk on August 30.

Vasily Danilyuk, a judge of Minsk City Economic Court, ruled this past March that the UBW, which was founded in 1934, had occupied premises in the House of Writers illegally since January 2003, and fined the UBW with 55.5 million rubels. //BelaPAN