DISY deputy and chairman of the House Watchdog Committee Christos Pourgourides has urged the Defence Ministry to drop Belarus from its list of potential suppliers of weapons materiel.
In a letter addressed to Defence Minister Kyriacos Mavronicolas yesterday, the deputy referred to the planned purchase of night-vision targeting systems for tanks. Three companies are currently vying for the contract: one from France, another from Russia and the third from Belarus.
Pourgourides strongly urged the ministry to exclude the Belarusian company on the grounds that doing business with that country could be “detrimental to Cyprus’ national interests.”
The deputy explained that, back in April, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) charged Belarus with human rights violations, asking member-states to apply pressure on the former Soviet republic.
In its recommendation 657, PACE called on member-countries “to apply political pressure (including sanctions) on the Belarusian Government in order to send it a strong signal that impunity for enforced disappearances is not tolerated by the international community.”
PACE’s recommendations were to a degree based on the findings of a report filed by Pourgourides himself as the Council of Europe’s Rapporteur in the case of missing persons in Belarus.
Pourgourides’ report pointed to several high-level Belarusian government officials who were ostensibly responsible for the kidnapping and murder of these people.
In 1999 and 2000, three well-known political opposition leaders and a TV cameraman disappeared in Minsk.
In a March 2004 interview with the Belarusian Review, a journal published by the Belarusian-American Association, Pourgourides said flat-out that Belarusian authorities had engineered a cover-up of the disappearances, hinting that President Lukashenko must have been aware of this.
Yesterday, Pourgourides also brought to Mavronicolas’ attention the fact that recent parliamentary elections and referendum in Belarus were deemed illegal by the Council of Europe.
“Given the above, I believe that the purchase of military equipment from the Belarusian regime would be a completely unacceptable action on our part.
Military equipment may just as well be purchased from countries with democratic regimes, which thankfully are not too few,” advised Pourgourides.
“If Cyprus proceeds with purchasing equipment from Belarus, our country will be irreparably exposed in the Council of Europe and the EU itself,” he concluded.
Meanwhile figures released yesterday showed a 1.7 per cent increase in the defence budget for 2005, with expenditure of £183 million.
