Berlusconi courts Lukashenko's favour

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has visited Belarus and paid compliments to President Alexander Lukashenko, who is shunned by the EU. The liberal daily Mladá Fronta Dnes is appalled: "Berlusconi has shown us how to deal with a dictator: you visit him, embrace him and shower him with praise. … Certainly there are cases in which maintaining relations helps to humanise dictators more than isolating them does. This is why US presidents always associated with the Soviet and Chinese leaders. But something important was at stake there. When [former French president François] Mitterrand visited Prague [before the Velvet Revolution] he also met up with dissidents. Berlusconi met no one but Lukashenko. And he was primarily concerned with business deals."

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