June 18, Pozirk. United States Senators Roger Wicker and Jeanne Shaheen, founders of the Free Belarus Caucus, have asked the US mission to the United Nations to support the Belarusian pro-democracy forces’ application for permanent observer status at the UN.
The UN has allowed non-member states to participate in its sessions and the General Assembly meetings since 1946, promoting “the voices of those who believe in the rules-based international order,” they said in a joint letter.
Belarusians and more than 1,500 people imprisoned on politically-motivated charges deserve to be heard by the international community, the letter stressed.
Belarusian people aspire to live in a peaceful and democratic society, yet authorities in Minsk support the Kremlin’s full-scale war on Ukraine and are complicit in Moscow’s illegal transfers of Ukrainian children, the senators said.
Over the past four years that passed since the rigged 2020 presidential election, Alaksandr Łukašenka has been seeking “to limit free speech, arrest dissidents and opposition leaders and develop a closer security, political and economic relationship with Russia,” the letter noted.
Washington recognizes Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja as “the legitimate winner” of the 2020 election in Belarus and a representative of the Belarusian people, the senators said.
Permanent observer status would help Cichanoŭskaja’s mission of promoting democracy, “send an unequivocal message” to authorities in Minsk and prepare the global community to stand against authoritarian regimes worldwide, the letter stressed.
Formalizing relations with Belarusian pro-democracy forces would help “ensure that Belarus stays on the international agenda,” opposition foreign affairs chief Valeryj Kavaleŭski said on X, thanking the senators for their support. “Broad institutionalized relations underscore that the sovereignty belongs to the Belarusian people, not to the dictator.”
