Treasury Clamps Down on Belarus Company

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Treasury Clamps Down on Belarus Company

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

(11-13) 08:23 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Bush administration moved Tuesday to clamp down financially on Belarus' largest oil and chemical company for allegedly being controlled by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The Treasury Department's action is against Belarusian State Concern for Oil and Chemistry and covers its offices in Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia and China and its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, Belneftekhim USA. Any assets found in the United States that belong to the company must be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with the company and its designated offices.

The government took the action under an executive order President Bush issued last year considering what the United States called "oppression" by Lukashenko and key members of his administration. The executive order, among other things, gives the U.S. government power to impose financial sanctions on people or companies determined to be responsible for undermining democratic processes or institutions in Belarus and for being owned or controlled by Lukashenko, who was previously designated under Bush's executive order.

Tuesday's action "tightens our sanctions against Lukashenko and his cronies by imposing financial sanctions against a massive conglomerate under the regime's control," said Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, known as OFAC. The agency administers and enforces the government's financial sanctions program.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, is often branded by Western countries as "Europe's last dictator." He won a third term last year in an election deemed fraudulent by Western governments. The Bush administration, which had called for new elections at the time, said Lukashenko's victory resulted from fraud and human rights abuses.

In October, thousands of Belarusian opposition activists shouting "freedom" marched through the the center of Minsk, the country's captial, to pressure Lukashenko to forge closer ties to Europe.

Lukashenko, meanwhile, has demanded that Washington stop supporting Belarusian opposition parties. In the summer, he vowed to shut down any nongovernmental group found to be receiving U.S. funding.

[source]

[Kernunnos]

Ridiculous hypocrite.

Yahoo cooperated with Chinese authorities in imprisoning cyber-dissidents, and no punishment of any sorts was imposed on Yahoo.

We had an US company cooperating with communist dictatorship, no need to disturb since this commies are doing cozy business with US and own a good share of US debt.

Belarus must be punished since it belongs to Putin's area of power.

Also, in Georgia the president, a puppet of the US, is clamping down on dissidents, but that is just a run of the mill act of democracy.