WASHINGTON -- If Texas ever secedes from the United States, it already has its first international ally: Belarus.
The former Soviet republic -- the last Stalinist-style dictatorship in Europe -- is accusing the U.S. government of human rights violations for suppressing Texas' independence movement.Belarus' Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted the alleged anti-Texas human rights violations in its recently published report entitled "Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries in 2012."The sharply worded report is a slap at Western nations that have compared 58-year-old Belarusian strongman Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko to former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin."The idea behind this report is to draw attention to the violation of human rights in those countries that traditionally represent themselves as 'developed democracies,'" the Minsk regime writes.The existence of the human rights treatise was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine.Belarus, whose government has been scorned by Western countries for its own human rights violations and repression of opposition groups and media, blasted the U.S. government for suppressing human rights, highlighting a Texas petition to secede from the United States.The White House rejected the electronic petition signed by more than 125,000 people. The Obama administration also rebuffed secession petitions from other former Confederate states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee.The Belarusian report said the Obama administration's unwillingness to consider the petitions "can be regarded as violation of the right to self-determination."It also echoed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's criticism of the Obama administration's stewardship of the U.S. economy."The Texas' petition ... points out that the U.S. economic travails resulted from the federal government's failure to reform fiscal policies," the report says.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
