Moscow – The European Union and the United States are considering personal sanctions against more than 40 officials and state journalists in Belarus for their roles in election rigging and crackdowns on civil society there, according to Western diplomats and government officials.
A list of officials under consideration includes not only President Alexander Lukashenko and his top staff but also extends to government ministers and security officials, as well as to prosecutors and judges involved in trying anti-government demonstrators and sentencing them to jail.
The European Union and the United States announced an intention to pursue punitive sanctions immediately after Lukashenko’s landslide re-election victory on March 19, which the West and the opposition have denounced as a sham.
The exact form European sanctions might take has not been determined and requires agreement by the entire union, but is likely to include bans on the officials’ travel to the 25 European Union countries, said a Western ambassador in Minsk, Belarus. Other steps might be taken as well, including freezing of assets.
The list is expected to be reviewed, and perhaps adopted, when the foreign ministers from the union meet in Luxembourg on April 10.
Lukashenko, whose inauguration had been scheduled for Friday but was postponed without explanation on Tuesday, is often referred to as Europe’s last remaining dictator. The United States and Europe have financed part of the opposition that has begun to challenge him.
He runs Belarus, a nation of 10 million people along Russia’s northwest border, like a Soviet holdout, where Lenin is officially revered and the preponderance of the economy is under state control.