Rice encourages opposition in Belarus

VILNIUS, Lithuania — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a boost yesterday to stalled efforts to oust the government of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, holding a high-profile meeting with key opposition figures. Russian and Belarusian officials criticized her actions and statements as interference.

Rice, who has scorned the Belarus government as "the last dictatorship in Europe," said she arranged the session to find out how the United States and other countries could assist the opposition in winning greater political freedoms. The Belarusian government "should know that their behavior is being watched ... this is not a dark corner in which things can go unobserved, uncommented on," she said.

Rice was in Vilnius to attend a meeting of foreign ministers from NATO alliance countries. In that session, the group agreed to offer to put Ukraine, with its new Western-oriented government, on a fast track toward membership in the alliance.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk told reporters his country could meet NATO's conditions within three years; alliance officials declined to set a timetable.

The Belarus opposition leaders said Rice told them the United States wanted to help in four key areas: promoting independent media, supporting political initiatives toward democracy, encouraging a national movement for free government and unifying the opposition around a candidate to challenge President Alexander Lukashenko in an election in 2006.

The seven Belarusians included the president of a shuttered university, an organizer of young people, a newspaper editor and the wife of a journalist who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

U.S. officials said they don't think Belarus is ripe for the kind of protests that in the past year and a half have swept three other former Soviet republics: Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Rice's meeting appeared to be aimed at preparing opposition officials for the elections, which Rice said would be an "excellent opportunity" to challenge the current government.

The opposition figures said they don't expect the vote will be fair and are planning to press their case with large street protests in the fall. They said they are trying to make the plight of people who have disappeared into a prime organizing issue.

In the meeting, Rice noted that similar disappearances helped to end military rule in Argentina and that "society needs an issue around which to unite," said Aleksander Dobrovolsky, deputy chairman of the United Civil Party, an opposition party.

Before arriving in Vilnius, Rice spent two days in Moscow assuring officials that U.S. support of democratic revolutions on its border was not intended to minimize its influence in the region.