said Tuesday, February 15, they want to put pressure on Belarus to stop an apparent crack down on independent trade unions.
Their warning to the autocratic run former Soviet nation comes amid growing concern among human rights groups, who see the pressure on the unions as part of the persecution of dissidents and religious minorities, including Christians of non registered churches.
President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s government is known to have an extensive centralized network which closely monitors political and religious dissent, Forum 18 and other rights groups say.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker, whose country is chairing the EU, told BosNewsLife the European Union must therefore pressure the Belarusian government to allow democratic institutions to flourish.
IMPROVE TRADE UNIONS
"In the few contacts we do have with Belarus we have to insist on the need they have to improve the situation of the (independent) trade unions," Junker said in Budapest at the start of the 7th European Regional Meeting of the ILO. An ILO official told BosNewsLife the pressures could include a "review of economic relations" with Belarus by his organization’s member states.
"What we may say to each of the ILO member states is: ‘please discuss at home what would be the appropriate measures that you would like to take’" [against Belarus], added ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola. "Our analyses essentially does not defer of that from the European Union and the European Commission."
He said ILO investigators recently returned from Belarus and concluded that "the government has interfered in elections in Belarus so that the main trade union is not representative of the views of workers." Tapiola stressed the ILO "expect the government to do what it promised and live up to the [ILO] recommendations that have been made." However he said that "so far we have seen preciously little changed in Belarus."
BELARUS DELEGATES
Officials from the Belarus government and independent trade unions participate in the Budapest meeting, in an attempt to start a dialogue. "Our constitution makes it impossible" to cancel Belarus’ membership of the ILO, Tapiola said. "But I don’t believe in kicking out a country…we rather have that they participate, because then we can have a dialogue with them."
Tapiola and other officials said they hope putting pressure on Belarus will also challenge other ILO members, especially those countries who are in transition from Communism to a Western style market economy.
The meeting, with government, workers and employers delegates from 50 nations, opened against the backdrop of a new ILO report painting a grim picture of the global employment situation.
It says that despite robust growth, the global economy is failing to create enough new jobs. "In Europe and Central Asia, despite a healthy 3.5 per cent economic growth rate in 2004, the number of jobs grew by only a half per cent," the ILO said in a statement. The coming days delegates will discuss a strategy to improve the situation of workers in the region.
(By: Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, BosNewsLife).
