A decade after the people of Belarus democratically elected Alexander Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, to the country"s presidency in 1994, he is Europe"s last dictator. The means by which he has achieved this position are worth analyzing, as they shed light on possible future developments in the former Soviet bloc and Europe as a whole.

The author protests the abuse of Anatol Lyabedzka, a leading advocate for democracy in Belarus, by the regime of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Few Western observers expected Sunday's elections in Belarus to be free or fair, so few have reason to be surprised by the results announced yesterday: a sweep for official parties in the parliament and passage of a referendum that will allow strongman Alexander Lukashenko to become, in effect, president-for-life. Mr. Lukashenko, who has been in office 10 years, is widely known in the West as Europe's last dictator. During the past decade he has repeatedly staged questionable elections while steadily eliminating free media, independent civic groups and opposition leaders.

Anatol Lyabedzka, leader of the United Civic Party, an opposition party in Belarus, will attend The Axis of Evil: Belarus--The Missing Link conference being organized by the New Atlantic Initiative (NAI) at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on Thursday, November 14, 2002.

Even as the political crisis in Ukraine has wound down, democratic leaders from Kiev to Washington have begun to think about how Belarus might be transformed.

Before the Iraq war, Washington ignored signals that clearly indicated Belarus was not only Iraq's most active ally in Europe but was also willing to provide refuge for members of Hussein's regime. Belarus may have been the only country where Hussein's henchmen might have expected to find government-sanctioned safety.

Before anyone gets too intoxicated with visions of "Europe" stretching from Dublin to the Mongolian steppe, it's worth considering the cold, hard calculus of post-Soviet politics. A meeting here late last month of Belarussian democratic activists hoping to topple their dictatorial president, Alexander Lukashenko, shows just how tortuous the road from authoritarian backwater to Jeffersonian republic can be -- with or without Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his fellow reformer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, cheering from the sidelines.