After ethnic cleansing comes electoral cleansing. With six weeks to go to the Bosnian elections, displaced ethnic Serbs are being registered en masse to vote in the Serb-controlled half of the country, regardless of their place of origin and often regardless of their wishes. It did little to improve the atmosphere of US-Belarussian relations, which suffered last year when Belarussian border guards shot down a hot-air balloon taking part in a European race, killing the two US pilots.. About 200 people received short jail terms for taking part in opposition-led demonstrations in spring, and on Monday, Mr Lukashenko banned rallies for the duration of Belarus's harvest.His repressive policies and enthusiasm for union with Russia have prompted a backlash, with seven opposition parties, from nationalists to Communists, signing a declaration last week that denounced Mr Lukashenko and warned of the danger of totalitarian rule.Undeterred, the President is seeking constitutional changes that would extend his term in office from five to seven years, enabling him to rule unchallenged until 2001.If Mr Lukashenko cares about his image in the US, he did himself no favours last Thursday by appearing to lend credence to a wild accusation from a Communist member of the Russian parliament that the CIA is plotting to overthrow him.Viktor Ilyukhin alleged that the CIA had set up a base in Warsaw to engineer Mr Lukashenko's fall by means of strikes and street protests.US diplomats dismissed the allegations as nonsense. "We've been concerned by a lot of the actions of the government and been concerned by some infringements of human rights," said Nicholas Burns, the State Department spokesman.Since coming to power in 1994 Mr Lukashenko has suspended trade unions, dismissed newspaper editors and ordered a crackdown on "anti-presidential actions". But US diplomats are under few illusions about Mr Lukashenko's rule.

Even parliament has no access to state television," said Pyotr Kravchenko, a former foreign minister.The US State Department, which advises immigration officials on granting asylum, may take the view that Mr Poznyak and Mr Naumchik would not be in danger of severe persecution if they returned to Belarus. We cannot conceal the fact that human rights are repeatedly violated. If he and Mr Naumchik, his assistant, were to be granted asylum, it would be the first such case involving any former Soviet republic since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Opposition politicians say this would seriously tarnish Belarus's international image, already battered by Mr Lukashenko's reputation for idiosyncratic, pro-Russian authoritarianism "There is constant pressure on the opposition. Mr Poznyak, leader of the Belarussian Popular Front, a nationalist opposition movement, left Belarus in April while under threat of arrest for organising rallies against Mr Lukashenko's policy of forging an economic and political union with Russia. Zenon Poznyak and Sergei Naumchik made their application in Washington last Tuesday, saying President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus had ordered them to be "neutralised". It was a nice idea but not very realistic," said Hans Peter Kleiner, an OSCE representative .Milodrag, the refugee being sent to vote in Bosanski Brod, said: "The only Serbs left there are old women, whom they beat up and persecute There is no future there for me or my family.".

The United States will decide soon whether to grant political asylum to two Belarussian opposition leaders who say their lives are in danger because they have exposed human-rights abuses in the former Soviet republic. None of this was envisaged when the Dayton accords were drawn up "The idea was that everyone would go home and vote there. Their wishes have now been adhered to but only after vocal objections.This "cleansing" is only one of many problems besetting the Bosnian poll process The election has already partly split along ethnic lines. In much of the Republika Srpska, Muslim and Croat parties have either not bothered to stand or else know they have no chance of winning any real power.If refugees have been told in advance where they will vote, it is partly because of the logistics of transporting them on the day. The chances are they will be taken by train to Bijeljina, north-eastern, Bosnia and then bused to their electoral districts.