WASHINGTON—Following his travels to Eastern Europe, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday asked U.S. Ambassador-designate to Belarus Julie Fisher about the importance of the Belarusian opposition movement and Lukashenka’s false claims about it, and how the United States can publicize Lukashenka’s corruption at a Committee hearing on Belarus.  

On the importance of the Belarusian opposition movement and Lukashenka’s false claims about it, Murphy said: “Lukashenka's claim is that the entire opposition movement is some U.S. front. [That] we're sort of using Belarus to get at Putin as part of sort of great power competition. It is important to recognize what the Belarusian opposition is asking for and how it's different, for instance, than what's happening in Ukraine. Where in Ukraine, the protesters, you know, very clearly wanted an orientation with Europe and with the West. That's very different than what's happening in Belarus today. This is not about an alignment with countries to the west of Belarus. This is just about human rights, dignity, the ability to determine for themselves what the future of that country is.”

On how the United States can publicize Lukashenka’s corruption, Murphy said: “Navalny is really dangerous to Putin in part because he has done a very effective job at exposing the financial holdings of Putin, and Medvedev, and others. We have capacities to do that as well, along with our European partners. OFAC is a perpetually underfunded agency at Treasury that with the right resources can do a good job of exposing the way in which these dictators abroad hide their money. But the media can do that as well. We're going to hear testimony on the next panel from Jamie Fly, who's going to talk about how the how Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty need additional funding and additional resources to be able to do that work themselves and expose for the Belarusian people the extent to which Lukashenka and his friends have stolen from the people of that country. What do you think about the tools that we have at our disposal to just tell the story of how corrupt this regime is?"

Last week, Murphy along with U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) traveled to Lithuania and Ukraine to reaffirm U.S. commitment to regional partners and strengthen democratic reforms. In Lithuania, Murphy, Shaheen and Portman met with Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Vilnius to discuss the Lukashenka regime’s increasing human rights abuses against political opposition, including the recent hijacking of a civilian airliner to unlawfully arrest and detain journalist Raman Pratasevich.

You can read Murphy’s full exchange with Fisher is below:

MURPHY: "Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing. Ambassador, thank you for your work. Thanks for your assistance to Senator Shaheen, Portman, and I in getting ready for our trip. I was incredibly impressed by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her team. The duress under which they are operating is just unfathomable and glad to be exploring new ways that we can support them. 

"You may have covered this in your prepared testimony, but it maybe bears repeating. Lukashenka's claim is that the entire opposition movement is some U.S. front. [That] we're sort of using Belarus to get at Putin as part of sort of great power competition. It is important to recognize what the Belarusian opposition is asking for and how it's different, for instance, than what's happening in Ukraine. 

"Where in Ukraine, the protesters, you know, very clearly wanted an orientation with Europe and with the West. That's very different than what's happening in Belarus today. This is not about an alignment with countries to the west of Belarus. This is just about human rights, dignity, the ability to determine for themselves what the future of that country is. Isn't that right?"

FISHER: "Sir, I think that's exactly right. And I think, you know, what we are seeing in Belarus, if I put it in a bit of context from what I have experienced in the former Soviet Union, over my years of service. Right, this is a delayed transition. Right. Lukashenka has held this grip on power. He has run Belarus in a very Soviet style for his quarter of a century. And what we see from the opposition is a clear desire. It is different from what happened in Ukraine, it is different from what we've seen happen in countries in the Caucasus, because this is the people saying, ‘we want to have a voice.’ 

"Largely the demonstrations last summer, to a large extent, had an awful lot to do with COVID. It had a lot to do with how the authorities had failed to respond to a health crisis. There were economic impacts. But immediately, what we saw, as people pointed out shortcomings from the regime, was the government went immediately reverted back to again, its Soviet style tools. 

"So what the opposition is looking for now, what that democratic opposition, which, again we can acknowledge that Lukashenka has put his opposition either behind bars or he has driven them to the borders of the country and kicked them out. So as we engage with those outside of the borders, the ones with whom we can engage, what they tell us explicitly they are after is the release of political prisoners and the conduct of a new election so that the people's voices can be heard.

"This isn't about the European Union. This certainly isn't about NATO. This is about a country that would like the opportunity to find some prosperity and stability for its own citizens, and a state that serves the citizens, not the other way around."

MURPHY: "Well said. Let me ask you one additional question and that's on how we sort of uncover and publicize the sort of endemic corruption of the Lukashenka government. Navalny is really dangerous to Putin, in part because he has done a very effective job at exposing the financial holdings of Putin, and Medvedev, and others. 

"We have capacities to do that as well along with our European partners. OFAC is a perpetually underfunded agency at Treasury that with the right resources can do a good job of exposing the way in which these dictators abroad hide their money. But the media can do that as well. We're going to hear testimony on the next panel from Jamie Fly, who's going to talk about how the how Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty need additional funding and additional resources to be able to do that work themselves and expose for the Belarusian people the extent to which Lukashenka and his friends have stolen from the people of that country. 

"What do you think about the tools that we have at our disposal to just tell the story of how corrupt this regime is?"

FISHER: "I think that what the committee is going to hear from the next panel, I think is going to be incredibly important. RFE/RL and their work is absolutely essential to telling that public story that you reference. 

"I think what is so compelling about the information that has been put out by Navalny is it reflects just how little investigative journalism exists in this part of the world and the importance of it. It is not a coincidence that the independent media has been Lukashenka's primary target in these months since last summer in the conduct of the election, and in all of these years. It's important to remember that in the lead up to the Ryanair diversion, one of the... There were some several significant events in the week before that, including the closure of the largest in country independent media, Tut.By. So this target is, it's very clear. I think there is more for us to do in support of that independent media. 

"I think the Global Engagement Center’s work if I could, if I could tout that for a second is absolutely essential in terms of how we counter some of the massive amounts of disinformation that are at work on the Belarus account. And, again, I know that Jamie Fly will talk much more about what it is that RFE/RL can do, and I'm quite supportive of that."

MURPHY: "Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman." 

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