To the dismay of human rights supporters, Czech officials defended their decision to invite Belarusian President Aleksander Luka - shenko, whose undemocratic rule earned him the label of Europe’s last dictator, to this week’s summit aimed at tying six ex-Soviet states closer to the European Union. Outgoing Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who invited Lukashenko to the top-level meeting, told a news conference that Belarusians would not benefit if the EU chose to leave their country “in the dark.” Last week, Lukashenko, in his first trip to the EU since a travel ban was lifted on him, met Italian leaders and Pope Benedict XVI, as the EU opened its doors and extended a hand to a man critics said allows no dissent and rules his country with an iron hand.

At the May 7 summit in Prague, EU leaders are to launch the so-called Eastern Partnership initiative designed to strengthen ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine through increased aid and partnership deals. Lukashenko’s appearance could provide yet another embarrassment to the Czech EU Presidency, which has floundered even as its government has fallen apart, because Czech President Vaclav Klaus, has said he would refuse to shake Lukashenko’s hand or acknowledge him, so there is uncertainty and apprehension about what will happen at the meeting.

The EU and US have since the mid-1990s campaigned to isolate Lukashenko and the Belarusian leadership by banning their travel, and imposing trade sanctions against Belarusian businesses. The decision to invite Lukashenko has been opposed by some EU member states and leaders of Belarus’ pro-democratic groups and came as a reporter for a Polish radio station was arrested in Belarus for criticising the government, which has an appalling human rights record, has directed the beatings of protesters and jailed political opponents.

The EU’s policy of engaging undemocratic regimes also meant a policy reversal for the Czechs, who denied Lukashenko a visa for a NATO summit held in Prague in 2002. Schwarzenberg, whose country chairs the EU until June 30, personally handed over the invitation to Lukashenko during a recent Minsk visit. While the presidency insisted it had invited Belarus and it was up to Belarus’ leaders to decide who would represent it, Schwarzenberg’s spokeswoman conceded to the German Press Agency Deuts - che-Presse-Agentur (dpa) that the invitation was addre ssed to the head of state, indicating the EU had hid its real intention. Meanwhile, Ivan Roman, a Belarusian national working for the Poland-based broadcaster Radio Racja, was charged with violating media law with reports of economic and social problems in the former Soviet republic, Belarus KGB security officials in the central province Hrodno claimed. There is no freedom of press in Belarus.

KGB agents arrested Roman at home and questioned him at a police station, before releasing him later. Radio Racja transmits from the Polish city Bialystok, near the Belarusian border. Roman also publishes the Polish-language Magazyn Polski, an independent magazine aimed at Bel - arus’ ethnic Polish minority. He could still face charges of “discrediting the Republic of Belarus,” a crime carrying a maximum two-year prison sentence, for “giving foreigners an incorrect impression,” acc - ording to the report. The law is akin to Turkey’s for “insulting Turkishness,” as neither country allows overt criticism and Belarusian reporters are even afraid to mention Lukas - henko’s growing baldness. The KGB officers singled out a report by Roman accurately stating that major Belarusian companies were failing to pay salaries to workers on time due to reduced business and a cash flow crunch.

“They (the KGB) told me I should report that Belarusian companies are still paying salaries, just a little bit late,” Roman said, that he was ordered to lie to protect the country’s image. “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” Roman said. “All I did was report things as they actually are. Lukashenko does not allow criticism and keeps a tight control on the media, where the state-run media is only allowed to praise him and has said that, unlike the rest of the world, Belarus is practically immune from recession. Belarusians nonetheless face falling incomes, rocketing inflation, and rising unemployment as Lukashenko’s government has struggled to adapt Belarus’ mostly state-run economy to international economic slowdown, none of which they are allowed to hear. Luka - shenko’s policies are allegedly against the norms the EU requires of countries with whom it has relationships, but are frequently violated themselves because of political expediency.

In the past, Lukashenko has accused Warsaw of attempting to undermine his regime by funding ethnic Polish opposition in Belarus, and anti- Belarus propaganda originating in Poland. Russia would like to believe European Union assurances that the bloc is not trying to create a sphere of influence in the former USSR, but the EU has not yet been convincing enough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “We would like very much to believe” that the EU’s planned Eastern Partnership with six former- Soviet states is not aimed at encircling Russia, Lavrov said after talks with EU diplomats in Luxembourg. Nonetheless, “some comments I have heard do worry us,” he said. EU officials say that the goal of the initiative is to help stabilise and modernize the six partner countries by bringing in free-market and pro-democracy reforms in return for EU support and concessions on trade and travel. But on March 21, Lavrov accused the EU of trying to build up a “sphere of influence” in the former-Soviet space.

He hinted at that fear again, saying that the EU had agreed in 1997 that “any processes leading to developments within the EU should ... ensure no overlap in the post-Soviet area.” EU officials have repeatedly dismissed those fears as groundless. Schwarzenberg, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said that Lavrov’s March comments were “nonsense,” while the EU’s top diplomat, Javier Solana, dismissed them as “not true.”