BBC - Friday, 31 March 2006

Prosecutors have filed charges against Poland's last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, over his imposition of martial law in 1981.

Charges were laid by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a body that investigates Nazi- and communist-era crimes.

Gen Jaruzelski imposed martial law to halt the activities of the Solidarity trade union, led by Lech Walesa.

The charges brought by the institute relate to crimes committed between 27 March 1981 and 31 December 1982 including "organising crimes of a military nature" and "carrying out crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment", according to the Associated Press.

Full story here.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Some 20 detained opposition supporters have gone on hunger strike to protest conditions at a Belarusian jail holding 400 opposition supporters, rights advocates said Tuesday, as authorities continued to crackdown on dissent following the disputed March 19 election.

Dozens of youth activists again flouted prohibitions on unauthorized demonstrations, rallying outside a Minsk jail where detained protesters were being held.

Meanwhile, authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose re-election to a third term was widely derided as fraudulent and sparked a week of unprecedented protests, commended police for ''efficiently'' maintaining the stability of the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

''Peace and order have returned the country just as it was,'' he said in televised comments.

Rights supporters said nearly 1,000 activists have already been sentenced or are behind bars awaiting sentencing for taking part in protests or supporting the opposition following the election. So many were picked up in Minsk that some were being sent to jails outside the capital.

A court also sentenced several journalists to jail on charges of hooliganism or participating in demonstrations, said press freedom groups. They said the convicted journalists included citizens of Belarus, Poland, Russia and Georgia.

Rights advocates alleged prisoners were being held in crowded conditions, and were denied water and the right to receive care packages. Up to 18 inmates were squeezed into cells designed to accommodate five, they said.

The election, which officials say Lukashenko won with 83 percent of the vote, set off days of demonstrations that drew thousands of people to Minsk's central square. The protests there ended when police staged a a pre-dawn raid Friday, breaking up an opposition tent camp.

Opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich, who officially received 6.1 percent of the vote, called the election a fraud. The United States and the European Union said the vote was deeply undemocratic and have vowed sanctions against Lukashenko and other officials.

An 18-year-old student who was detained in the Minsk tent camp last week said detainees were subjected to psychological abuse. ''We were told we would be taken into the forest and shot, and that girls would be raped beforehand,'' Polina Denisova testified in court.

Pro-Lukashenko youth activists, meanwhile, again staged rallies outside the American and Polish embassies in what apparently were government-sanctioned demonstrations.

KIEV (Reuters) - Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko signaled a return to office to form a coalition government after a poll triumph, urging pro-Western liberals to end squabbles and keep out a pro-Russian party.

Tymoshenko said on Sunday a coalition deal was "practically ready," but the poll outcome put her and other 2004 "Orange Revolution" leaders under pressure to deliver on reforms after prizing Ukraine from centuries of Russian domination.

Voter disillusionment over "Orange" team splits and an economic slowdown hit the liberals and clearly helped Viktor Yanukovich's pro-Russian Regions Party win the largest share of the ballot in the parliamentary elections on Sunday.

But exit polls showed the liberals, who have set the former Soviet republic on a course to join the European mainstream, can still control parliament. Further talks between the liberals on a coalition were scheduled for 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Monday.

The exit polls gave Yanukovich's Regions Party 27-31 percent, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc 22-24 percent and President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party about 15 percent. Preliminary results were not expected for two to three days.

The poll outcome was a double humiliation for Yushchenko, who beat Yanukovich in a presidential poll re-run after the December 2004 street protests and who later fell out with and sacked Tymoshenko, his former Orange Revolution comrade.

Full story here.

The EU has called for the immediate release of Belarus opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin.

Mr Kozulin was arrested along with several protesters on Saturday as they marched towards a jail where other demonstrators were being held.

The EU said it was "appalled" and demanded the Mr Kozulin and other detainees be freed immediately.

The arrests came after police and protesters clashed during an opposition rally over disputed election results.

His whereabouts are still unknown.

Earlier, the main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told several thousand protesters gathered in Yanka Kupala park that the government's handling of the protests would spell its downfall.

"The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end," he said.

Full story here.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions.

A week into protests set off by the disputed election that handed Lukashenko a third term, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told a crowd of thousands that momentum is growing to bring democracy to Belarus.

''We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later bear its fruit,'' he said.

But Milinkevich also urged a monthlong recess in protests, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build opposition forces, which have fallen far short of the huge outpourings that peacefully overturned governments in Ukraine and Georgia.

The day of confrontation and wildly swinging emotions left two big questions for the former Soviet republic of 10 million people, characterized in the West as Europe's last dictatorship: How much dissent are the authorities willing to allow and how much support does the opposition have?

Milinkevich spoke at an impromptu rally in a park after hundreds of police blocked protesters from gathering on the central square that had been the focus of anti-Lukashenko demonstrations until riot squads swept in before dawn Friday and arrested dozens of people.

Demonstrators held flowers, waved the red-and-white flag of the opposition and shouted ''Milinkevich!'' and ''We are not afraid!''

Police didn't interfere with the 7,000 people in the park, raising hopes that security forces' long history of violence against dissenters was softening.

But authorities showed their tolerance had limits after part of the rally's participants marched off toward a jail holding some of those arrested during demonstrations against the March 19 presidential election that the protesters consider fraudulent.

Cheerily chanting ''police be with the people'' as they passed officers along the way, the crowd of about 3,000 suddenly grew somber when a three-deep phalanx of riot police with shields confronted them at a railroad underpass.

Banging truncheons on shields, the officers advanced on the marchers, causing some to scurry away. Police herded other protesters back along the street, beating some bloody and arresting about 20, as demonstrators shouted ''Fascists!''

At least four percussion grenades were detonated, adding to the chaos. Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov later denied the explosions were set off by police, but did not say what caused them.

More than 100 people were arrested throughout the day, said Ales Byalyatsky of the human rights group Vasnya.

The International Helsinki Federation said one demonstrator was severely injured with a fractured skull. A Russian journalist, Pavel Sheremet, was beaten and detained earlier in the central city, his father told The Associated Press.

The United States criticized the use of force.

''We call on Belarusian authorities to refrain from further use of force and arrests against those exercising their legitimate rights to assembly and expression,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement. He also urged the release of those jailed.

Among those arrested at the march was Alexander Kozulin, who like Milinkevich was a candidate against Lukashenko in the election. His spokeswoman, Nina Shedlovskaya, said he was beaten by police.

Kozulin apparently initiated the march to the jail, angering Milinkevich, who said that ''Kozulin decided to spoil this holiday for the people.''

The two have appeared together at opposition meetings over the past week, but Milinkevich clearly commands the crowds' affections.

The rally at the park was the biggest since the first protest on election night, when about 10,000 people turned out. But the large number was counterbalanced by hundreds of others who walked by in apathy, disgust or fear of taking part.

The crowd was mostly people younger than 30, with a large contingent of elderly. Middle-aged or middle-class people were few, underlining that the opposition so far isn't drawing broad-based support in public.

Milinkevich nonetheless said he was elated by the turnout.

''The people have come out today, they have come out in the face of truncheons, in the face of arrests,'' he said. ''The more the authorities conduct repression, the closer they bring themselves to their end.''

Still, he acknowledged opposition numbers are not enough to defeat Lukashenko's government.

Milinkevich called for the next rally to take place April 26, the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, which sent radiation over Belarus. Many people are unhappy over Lukashenko's moves to repopulate evacuated areas of the contamination zone.

Saturday's rally came on the anniversary of Belarus' first independence declaration in 1918, which Milinkevich hoped would spur a big turnout of discontented Belarusians.

''I am tired of being afraid, and the fear is leaving me,'' said Yelena Sokolovskaya, 44, an accountant who listened to his speech. She said the government's claims that the economy is thriving are ''a lie -- Milinkevich speaks the truth.''

The confrontation at the march came a day after police stormed a tent camp in the central October Square where around-the-clock protests began after Lukashenko won a new five-year term by a landslide.

Among those arrested at the square was Poland's former ambassador to Belarus, Mariusz Maszkiewicz, the Polish Embassy said Saturday. Neighboring Poland, which shed Moscow's domination in 1989, has angered the pro-Russian Lukashenko with its support for the opposition.

Responding to the crackdown on government opponents, the European Union and the United States said Friday that they would impose sanctions on Lukashenko.

However, the sanctions seemed unlikely to influence Lukashenko, who despises the West and has allied his country with Russia. In a statement late Friday, the Foreign Ministry said that the sanctions had ''no prospects'' and that Belarus reserved the right to take retaliatory measures.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States joined European nations Friday in imposing sanctions on Belarus in retaliation for a crackdown on political protesters after an election that the White House said was fraudulent.

Washington will act in unison with the European Union in applying targeted travel restrictions and financial sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko and others, the White House said.

''Our nation's thoughts are with those who have been harassed, detained, imprisoned or beaten for their efforts'' to return freedom to Belarus, the White House said in a presidential message.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration urges ''all members of the international community to demand that authorities in Belarus respect the rights of their own citizens to express themselves peacefully and to condemn any and all abuses.''

He said the United States strongly condemned actions by Belarus' security forces who seized and detained citizens demonstrating against the results of the presidential election.

''The United States calls on authorities in Belarus to release without delay the hundreds of citizens who have been detained not only in the past 24 hours but in recent days and weeks simply for expressing their political views,'' McClellan said.

Russia, which is close to the former Soviet republic, has taken a different tack, saying the media had distorted the severity of the police action.

A State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, said, ''The Russians have obviously taken a position regarding the elections in Belarus I think that differs from ours.''

''Every country is obviously free to decide what it wants to do,'' Ereli said.

The UN's human rights envoy for Belarus has urged authorities to free all political prisoners, condemning alleged rights violations after Sunday's poll.

Adrian Severin said more than 100 people had been detained following protests against President Alexander Lukashenko's election victory.

In a statement issued in Geneva, Mr Severin said he was concerned about the "detention of numerous citizens peacefully demonstrating against the electoral results".

Mr Severin called on Belarus to "release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners, and to bring all violations of freedom of expression and of the right of peaceful assembly to an immediate end".

Full story here.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday sealed the fate of its discredited Human Rights Commission, ordering it to be shut down in three months and replaced by a new U.N. Human Rights Council.

A resolution approved without a formal vote by the 54-nation U.N. Economic and Social Council abolished the Geneva-based rights commission as of June 16. The commission was first created in February 1946.

The replacement rights council was established by the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly just last week.

The vote to create it was 170-4 with three abstentions. The United States and close allies Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau voted ``no'' while Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

The 53-nation rights commission had come under fire from Western democracies, human rights groups and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan after a number of rights-abusing nations won seats and began working as a bloc to protect one another from criticism.

Membership on the commission was decided by the Economic and Social Council, and most candidates were put forward by regional groupings and ran without opposition.

President George W. Bush's administration lobbied hard for strong barriers to membership by rights abusers on the new 47-nation council, but in the end decided those barriers were not tough enough.

Many developing nations were critical of the plan for a new rights council, saying Western powers merely wanted to target poor countries and would protect their friends.

Belarus' main opposition leader has urged his supporters to keep up daily protests against the election result, calling for a major rally on Saturday.

Alexander Milinkevich was addressing a few thousand protesters who had gathered in a Minsk square to complain of vote-rigging in Sunday's poll.

Ambassadors from 11 EU countries went to the square earlier to show support.

British ambassador Brian Bennett said Europe was dissatified over what had been a "fraudulent vote".

Mr Milinkevich said he was going to spend another night with his supporters camped out in the square.

He called for a big show of strength in the Belarussian capital on Saturday - the anniversary of the declaration of independence of the short-lived Belarussian republic in 1918.

They said they would continue their protest in sub-zero temperatures until a new election was called - but such an outcome is unlikely, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports from Minsk.

One young man in the square told the BBC "this is the last chance to change the situation".

Full story here.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is set to sharpen sanctions against Belarus after condemning the ex-Soviet state's presidential election as neither free nor fair.

EU foreign ministers on Monday backed sanctions such as visa bans that could be formalized in April after they have studied in detail the international observers' verdict on the polls.

But divisions emerged over the scope of sanctions, diplomats said, some countries demanding economic restrictions while others backed a more cautious approach.

``We are convinced that for democracy and democrats in Belarus the climate of winter will not prevail,'' said Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country hold the EU's rotating presidency.

``We have started a discussion on possible restrictive measures,'' she said, adding the EU fully sided with findings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

OSCE observers concluded Sunday's poll in Belarus, in which incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was declared the runaway winner, fell far short of accepted standards.

The executive European Commission said the sanctions could involve a visa ban on Belarus officials deemed responsible for any election rigging. Diplomats said it remained unclear if Lukashenko would be included.

``The actions need to be targeted against those responsible for that. We don't want to turn our backs on the people of Belarus, we don't want to abandon them,'' EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told a news conference.

Speaking to German radio, EU Industry and Enterprise Commissioner Guenter Verheugen called Belarus ``a dictatorship,'' a view long expressed by the United States.

The EU has already banned six Belarussian officials from entering the bloc and the question now is how many officials it will target with new bans.

Belarus's Central Election Commission said Lukashenko won re-election with 82.6 percent of the vote to opposition hopeful Alexander Milinkevich's 6 percent in Sunday's election.

``NO SKIING FOR LUKASHENKO''

Diplomats said the ministers were split over the timing and scope of sanctions, with Poland and some other countries bordering Belarus demanding targeted economic sanctions and other EU members being more cautious.

``We might have smart sanctions which would be directed at people and companies linked to the Belarus regime,'' said Poland's deputy foreign minister, Stanislaw Komorowski, adding he backed a visa ban for Lukashenko.

``I see no possibility of Lukashenko coming for skiing in Zakopane (Polish ski resort),'' he said.

France said it was too early to speak about details.

``It's a situation from another age (in Belarus), which requires from us an extremely firm reaction,'' French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news briefing.

The Czech Republic prefers to avoid tough sanctions. ``I do prefer just to promote dialogue, and to support universities, NGOs, opposition, all democratic forces,'' said Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda.

Members of the European Parliament said Belarus should hold a new vote.

``The 82 percent result for Lukashenko can in fact only be called a 'farce' and we will support the opposition in its request for new honest and fair elections,'' said Hans-Gert Poettering, chairman of the right-wing European Peoples' Party in the parliament.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on Belarussian authorities to exercise restraint in dealing with any demonstrations by their opponents in the days ahead.

Editor's commentary: Pay attention on poll turnout under polar winter: 93%!!! Any person involved with polls and election process will tell you that it is simply impossible just as 100% turnout during Saddam's rule was. Even worse, results were announced within 24 hours of polls closeout during polar winter!!! We have a different proposal, severe all diplomatic ties with those who invite Lukashenko to their countries because they are nothing but accessories in a crime against humanity. Depriving people from their political choice is a crime against humanity.

A delegation of European Union MPs has abandoned plans to go to Belarus to monitor the presidential election after its members were refused visas.

The head of the European delegation told the BBC he feared the Belarussian government would use force to suppress popular protests.

A group of monitors from the European security organisation, the OSCE, has also been refused entry.

The BBC's Alix Kroeger, in Strasbourg, said the MEPs who were supposed to be monitoring the elections in Belarus now say they see no chance of a democratic vote.

The head of the delegation, Polish MEP Bogdan Klich, said they were told any attempt to enter Belarus would be treated as a provocation and would be blocked at the border.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Our suggestion for them is to give up on monitoring elections and instead relax with popcorn and soda and watch a movie "Sniper 2".

The Belarus government has ordered eight members of a Scandinavian team of unofficial election observers to leave.

The two Swedes and six Danes were part of a monitoring team sent by the unaccredited Danish group Silba.

They were arrested on Tuesday - the first day of early voting ahead of a presidential election officially set for Sunday.

The Swedes, Thomas Ochman and Bjorn Stenstrom - members of Sweden's Liberal Party - were arrested in the western city of Grodno after visiting a polling station there.

They are accused of breaking a law which states that conducting opinion polls is banned in Belarus.

Six other representatives from the Friends Across Borders NGO, which includes members of Silba and the Social Democratic Youth of Denmark (DSU) were arrested in Minsk.

Michael Johnson, the DSU co-ordinator for Belarus, said the police confiscated computer equipment and questioned them for four hours at a police station.

Full story here.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Belarusian authorities arrested nearly two dozen opposition activists and confiscated the entire print run of the country's largest independent newspaper Tuesday as Belarusians cast early ballots for Sunday's presidential election.

The opposition fears the vote will be rigged in favor of authoritarian incumbent Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet republic with an iron fist since 1994 and has been branded ''Europe's last dictator'' by Western nations. After pushing through a widely contested referendum scrapping presidential term limits, Lukashenko is expected to win a third term.

The number of opposition activists arrested during the election campaign rose to more than 300 Tuesday as more than 20 opposition supporters and aides to the main opposition candidate were detained, human rights officials said. Most were charged with organizing illegal demonstrations or ''petty hooliganism.''

Rights activists said a district campaign chief to the main opposition challenger, Alexander Milinkevich, had been arrested in one city and charged with ''swearing.''

Ales Belyatski of the Vyasna human rights center said more than 300 activists had been arrested so far.

The chief editor of the country's largest newspaper said its latest 54,000-issue print run was confiscated by authorities at the border with Russia. It was the second time in just over a week that Narodnaya Volya, which is published in a neighboring Russian city to avoid official shutdown, had its print run confiscated.

''The elections are being conducted under the condition of complete information isolation for the voters, and authorities aren't even making any attempts to create the illusion of the free press,'' editor Svetlana Kalinka told The Associated Press.

Officials with the Ministry of Information refused to comment.

The opposition contends that early voting allows for multiple voting and ballot-stuffing at unguarded and unmonitored polling stations. Opposition leaders have called for peaceful protests if votes are counted fraudulently. An official ban on rallies Sunday has set the stage for potentially violent confrontation.

Milinkevich has called on Belarusians not to take part in the early voting, calling it a ploy by authorities aimed at falsifying election results. He told the AP that he had urged Belarusians not to take part because ''your votes will simply be stolen.''

Nikolai Lazovik, an official with the Central Election Commission, denied that.

''This procedure is set out by the law, and there's nothing frightening about it,'' he said.

Also Tuesday, a team of European Parliament members picked to observe the elections gave up its efforts to travel to Belarus after being denied entry visas.

''The vote of the people doesn't need any external recognition,'' Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov said, dismissing repeated and growing concerns voiced by Western countries about the

A university student who identified himself only as Andrei out of fear of retribution said students had been warned ''that if we don't vote early, there could be problems.''

He did not say who had issued the warning.

He said he had voted for ''a free and European future,'' but declined to say which candidate he supported.

Galina Grushnitskaya, a 72-year-old retiree, said she was voting early -- for Lukashenko -- because she feared opposition-orchestrated violence on voting day.

According to official statistics, as many as 30 percent of voters usually take part in early balloting. Opposition parties have been denied virtually all representation on election commissions that monitor the vote.

Nearly 7 million Belarusians are eligible to vote in this nation of 10 million, according to the Central Election Commission.

Besides Milinkevich, Lukashenko is facing another opposition challenger and a pro-Lukashenko politician who is widely viewed as running to add legitimacy to the election.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded "the butcher of the Balkans" and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death.

He had been examined by doctors following his frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when he last underwent a medical checkup. All detainees at the center in Scheveningen are checked by a guard every half hour.

Milosevic's death came less than a week after the star witness in his trial, former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison. Babic, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence, committed suicide.

His testimony in 2002 described a political and military command structure headed by Milosevic in Belgrade that operated behind the scenes.

Full story here.

An opposition leader in Belarus has been jailed for two weeks for organising an unauthorised rally, a fortnight ahead of the elections.

The sentence means Vintsuk Vyachorka will be unable to take further part in campaigning for the polls on 19 March.

He had played a key role in the campaign for Alexander Milinkevich, one of three opposition candidates.

Mr Vyachorka and two others were sentenced to 15 days on charges of organising and participating in unauthorised rallies.

Before the trial in Minsk, he said: "It is a political trial.

"I am guilty of nothing. The election law permits representatives of a candidate running for election to organise meetings with voters."

Full story here.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two-thirds of people in the United States say Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam Hussein, but many longtime U.S. allies are less optimistic, AP-Ipsos polling found.

Iraq is struggling to form a government, and the trial of Saddam is in its fifth month. A surge in violence after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra raised fears that Iraq could descend into civil war.

Of the eight other countries surveyed, only residents of Britain, Italy and Canada were more likely to say Iraqis are ''better off'' now than they were under Saddam than to say they are ''worse off.''

People in France, Germany, Mexico, South Korea and Spain say Iraq is worse off since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

''Certainly the people have more freedom,'' said retiree Adolph Jirka of Omaha, Neb. ''But we keep hearing they don't have electricity and those kinds of things. Overall, I'd have to say they're better off, though.''

U.S. attitudes also differed from those in eight other countries on how Saddam should be punished if he is convicted of murder and torture. Americans want him to be executed. People in the other eight countries want him to spend life in prison.

People in the U.S. are strongly convinced that Saddam is getting a fair trial -- with three-fourths feeling that way. In other countries surveyed, they were less confident, though a majority in several countries felt the legal proceedings are fair.

On the question of how Iraqis are doing, a slight majority of Britons, 52 percent, and Canadians, 51 percent, said the Iraqis are better off now. Just over four in 10 Italians, 43 percent, felt that way, according to the AP-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each of eight countries and 1,600 in a poll conducted in person in Mexico. They were conducted from Feb. 10-19 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 2.5 points in Mexico.

In Mexico, South Korea and Spain, people were pessimistic about the current plight of Iraqis, while in Germany and France -- two countries that strongly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- people were about evenly divided.

''Iraq is in a worse situation now,'' said Michael Degrange, an architecture student interviewed in Paris. ''Under Saddam's control, there was a sort of stability. There was an order even if it was had by brutal force.''

Order and stability have been in short supply in Iraq for a long time -- especially the last couple of weeks.

The destruction of the 1,200-year-old shrine in Samarra in late February brought reprisals from Shiite militiamen, who attacked Sunni mosques around the country. Almost 400 people died in related violence in the week after the shrine bombing, the Iraqi government reported.

The trial of Saddam on charges of murder and torture has been proceeding in fits and starts since mid-October.

Almost six in 10 in the U.S. want Saddam executed if he's convicted at his trial.

''If he truly destroyed as many lives as they say he did, then he doesn't deserve to live,'' said Craig Larson, a military retiree who lives in Chesapeake, Va.

The poll found that people in the eight other countries, where the death penalty mostly has been abolished, prefer that the former Iraqi leader spend the rest of his life in prison.

''I hope that (Saddam) will be not sentenced to death,'' said Giovanna Cippitello, sitting on a wall near the Pantheon in Rome, ''but that he is made into a living example for other dictators around the world.''

The death penalty has been abolished in seven of the nine countries polled. South Korea has talked about abolishing it. Public support remains strong for state-sanctioned executions in the United States, where 1,012 people have been executed over the past 28 years and at least 3,300 more are on death row.

A study by Amnesty International found that more than nine of 10 executions worldwide in 2004 were carried out in the United States, China, Iran and Vietnam.

The poll found 73 percent of those surveyed in the United States said Saddam is getting a fair trial. Many in the other countries surveyed aren't so sure. A third or less of the people in Mexico, Spain and South Korea and fewer than half in France say he is getting a fair shake.

''He's getting as fair a trial as possible,'' said Jessie Malone, a retail manager from Stillwater, Okla. ''I don't think he deserves a trial at all. In my opinion, it's a joke that we're going through the motions.''

ROME (AP) -- An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded ''beyond any reasonable doubt'' that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II, the first time an official body has blamed the Kremlin for the failed assassination.

The draft report, obtained by The Associated Press Thursday, said the pope was considered a threat to the Soviet bloc because of his support for the Solidarity labor movement in his native Poland. Solidarity was the first free trade union in communist eastern Europe.

The Italian report said Soviet military intelligence -- and not the KGB -- was responsible. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation ''absurd.''

''All assertions of any kind of participation in the attempt on the pope's life by Soviet special services, including foreign intelligence, are completely absurd,'' he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

In its report, the commission said Moscow was alarmed because ''Poland was the main military base of the Warsaw Pact, its main supply lines and troop concentrations were there.''

''This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla,'' the document said. Wojtyla was John Paul's Polish name.

The draft has no bearing on any judicial investigations, which have long been closed. If the commission approves the report in its final form at a meeting Tuesday, it will be the first time an official body has blamed the Soviet Union.

The report also said a photograph shows that Sergei Antonov, a Bulgarian man acquitted of involvement in the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt, was in St. Peter's Square when the pontiff was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca.

The Bulgarian secret service was allegedly working for Soviet military intelligence, but the Italian court held the evidence was insufficient to convict the Bulgarians in the plot.

Agca, a Turk, has changed his story often and investigators said it was never clear who he was working for. He initially blamed the Soviets. In 1991, then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev denied there was KGB complicity.

In Bulgaria, Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimiter Tsanchev told reporters the case was closed with the Italian court decision in March 1986. He also referred to comments by John Paul during his visit to Bulgaria in May 2002.

''The pope said at the time that he never believed in the Bulgarian connection,'' Tsanchev said.

Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for shooting the pope and 5 1/2 more years in Turkey for murdering journalist Abdi Ipekci. He was released from the Turkish prison on Jan. 12 but returned days later when prosecutors said he must serve more of his 10-year term for killing Ipekci. He will be released in 2010.

The Italian commission was originally established to investigate any KGB penetration of Italy during the Cold War.

The commission president, Sen. Paolo Guzzanti, said he decided to investigate the 1981 shooting after John Paul said in his book ''Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums'' that ''someone else planned it, someone else commissioned it.'' The book came out weeks before the pope's death in April.

The passage drew immediate interest because during John Paul's 2002 visit to Bulgaria, he appeared to put the issue to rest, saying he never believed there was a Bulgarian connection to Agca.

The report said the commission considered all the evidence gathered during trials in Italy as well as information from a French anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere. That information apparently stemmed from the French investigation of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, held in France since his capture in Sudan in 1994.

Antonov's lawyer, Giuseppe Consolo, said the photograph was a case of mistaken identity. He said the man in the photo came forward during the investigation and was an American tourist of Hungarian origin. The photo was not used as evidence in the trial.

''Since Antonov is alive and well in Bulgaria, they should make a comparison with the physical person, not with other photos,'' Consolo said.

Guzzanti, a member of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, said the photo was not used because the technology of the time couldn't determine if it was really Antonov, but recent computer comparisons with other shots of the Bulgarian show that ''there is a 100 percent compatibility.''

''We don't believe it's possible to reopen the case against Antonov,'' Guzzanti told the AP. ''We just want to set the record straight.''

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Government security agents beat and detained an opposition presidential candidate on Thursday, two weeks before Belarus holds an election expected to return authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to power.

Hours later, several thousand opposition supporters massed for an unsanctioned rally in a square in downtown Minsk. A large contingent of riot police stood guard and pushed back the crowd, which chanted ''Freedom.''

''Victory will be ours,'' opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich -- the main presidential challenger to Lukashenko -- told his supporters defiantly before the rally dispersed peacefully.

Alexander Kozulin, the opposition candidate who was beaten and detained after he tried to enter a conference chaired by Lukashenko, said he attempted to attend it because ''I wanted to tell the truth about the dictatorship we live in.''

He and three members of his campaign were beaten, and Kozulin was taken to a police station. Later in the evening, he was released.

Lukashenko has ruled his isolated former Soviet nation with an iron hand since 1994. Over the past dozen years has quashed dissent and maintained his grip on power through votes dismissed as illegitimate by his opponents and Western governments that have dubbed him Europe's last dictator.

The United States strongly condemned the beating and warned that the former Soviet republic would face consequences if elections scheduled this month are not free and fair.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David J. Kramer, who visited Minsk last week, would provide no details of what the United States might do except that Belarus officials would find ''life more difficult and confined.''

He said the United States was working closely with its European allies to coordinate any actions to be taken against Belarus.

The Vienna-based OSCE, which is deploying an election observer mission in Belarus, also expressed concern about Thursday's arrests.

Lukashenko and other officials allege the opposition is receiving aid from the West with the aim of provoking an uprising after the election, similar to mass demonstrations in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan that helped drive longtime leaders out of power over the past two years.

Lukashenko told the conference in Minsk that the opposition leaders are ''mercenary opponents of our society and our people.''

The opposition ''will be dismantled in a tough way after the elections,'' he said in a four-hour address to a conference, which was frequently interrupted by lengthy applause from delegates.

Kozulin's spokeswoman, Nina Shidlovskaya, said that one of the men who had beaten the candidate was the commander of a riot police unit; other assailants were in plainclothes.

Police fired warning shots, then beat and rounded up about 20 Kozulin supporters who gathered at the police station to demand his release. Kozulin's lawyer, Igor Rynkevich, who demanded access to his client, was also detained.

Kozulin, whose Social-Democratic Party had nominated him to be a delegate to the conference, would be charged with ''hooliganism,'' the prosecutor's office said.

The head of the Vyasna human rights center, Ales Byalyatsky, said about 60 opposition members were rounded up on Thursday.

''The first shots have already been heard, a total 'cleanup' of the opposition has begun,'' he said.

Montenegro's parliament has unanimously agreed to hold a referendum on independence from Serbia on 21 May.

The agreement, brokered by the European Union, follows months of wrangling between the pro-independence governing coalition and the opposition.

The union of Serbia and Montenegro is all that remains of the federation of six republics which made up Yugoslavia before the wars of the 1990s.

Montenegro's prime minister wants to cut official ties with Serbia.

Now Montenegrins will decide on 21 May if they want to separate from Serbia.

Full story here.