Missing the boat

A week ago, President Bush met with President Putin of Russia in the medieval castle that dominates a beautiful riverside front. Focused almost exclusively on what turned out to be a somewhat lackluster performance from Bush, the media largely missed a story just down the hill from the citadel. There, in the iconic Hotel Danube, a veritable who's who of Eastern Europe's second generation of democratic revolutionaries met at the "A New Quest for Democracy" conference.\nDemocracy swept across Eastern Europe in 1989, but countries such as Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus missed the freedom boat. But fortunately for the livelihoods of millions, a second generation of democratic activists began to finish the job in the late nineties. \nHere in Slovakia, civil society groups initiated the "OK '98" campaign to force the electoral defeat of the country's authoritarian founder, Vladimir Meciar. Two years later, Serbian youths of the Otpor ("Resistance") movement rallied their fellow citizens under the slogan of "He's finished!" and overthrew Slobodan Milosevic's regime. In 2003 in Georgia, the Kmara movement engineered the "Rose Revolution" to rid the country of the crooked autocrat Eduard Shevardnadze. Finally, earlier this winter, the world stood amazed as the Ukrainian people tore off the shackles of Russian imperialism and despotism in the "Orange Revolution," led by the PORA movement.\nLast week, after receiving medals from the Slovak foreign minister, the democracy activists met at quite possibly the only Mexican restaurant in Bratislava to celebrate their past successes. But one of the dissident groups at the dinner table could not rejoice without deep, bittersweet feelings. After having trained the activists of the "Orange Revolution," the Belarussian Zubr movement -- whose name comes from a rare bison that runs free only in Belarus -- still struggles against the last dictatorship in Europe.\nBelarussian President Alexander Lukashenka bans all independent media. For example, to send an e-mail that mentions politics, opponents of the regime have to go to an Internet café and send their messages using temporary e-mail addresses, as the KGB taps all of their communication. According to Parade magazine, Lukashenka also gave himself the power to appoint all 110 members of the nation's upper house of parliament. Almost all of the prominent opposition leaders have been arrested on superfluous charges or have "disappeared" -- most likely murdered -- by the regime.\nUnlike in Ukraine, domestic businesses cannot fund the Belarussian opposition. One dissident told me that a year ago, he met with a business friend in an attempt to secure funding. The friend initially promised help, but only 10 minutes after the meeting ended, the businessman called and told the dissident he could not help whatsoever. Immediately after the get-together, a KGB agent had caught the businessman and said that he would shut down the man's business if he gave even one dollar to the democrat.\nThe international community has not made the situation much better. Most well-known non-governmental organizations pulled the majority of their funding from Belarus after Lukashenka began to crackdown on opponents even more harshly after the 2001 election. Many such groups also require their grantees to be registered with the Belarussian state -- a ridiculous requirement as the Minsk government would never allow for an organization that threatens the dictatorship to exist. \nIn front of the Slovakian national theater in the Old Town Square behind the Hotel Danube, President Bush took the right first steps in truly promoting democracy in Belarus. There, he met with members of the Belarussian opposition and promised that one day, Belarus will join the community of democratic nations. Let's hope his prediction comes true sooner rather than later.