BELARUSAN AUTHORITIES CLAMP DOWN ON DEMONSTRATORS.

Members of the Belarusan Helsinki Committee told The Monitor yesterday that the authorities continue to hold dozens of participants arrested during and after the March 10, March 14, and March 15 democracy and national independence demonstrations in Minsk. (See Monitor, March 11, 17) Many of those arrested have been fined sums ranging from 20 to 100 minimum monthly salaries, and some have been sentenced to up to five days of administrative arrest. The authorities are withholding information on the number and identities of those arrested and sentenced under the administrative procedure. Popular Front leaders Yury Khadyka and Stanislau Husak are known to be among them. The police have interrogated and installed surveillance squads at the apartments of Syamyon Sharetsky, Myachislau Hryb, Henadz Karpenka, and other leaders of the forcibly dissolved parliament. (Belapan, Interfax, March 17)

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Andreyev yesterday rejected as "erroneous and counterproductive" the U.S. State Department’s latest criticism of Belarusan president Aleksandr Lukashenko’s policies. The Russian spokesman also defended Lukashenko’s right to act jointly with Russian president Boris Yeltsin in "integrating the two countries in order to accelerate economic reforms and develop democracy." (Itar-Tass, Interfax, March 18)

Ukrainian Leftists Show Some Muscle.