The crowd in a spacious square in Minsk on a crisp autumn day recently was subdued but hardly fearful

There were rousing speeches, but they didn`t amount to a call to arms or an appeal for the overthrow of the government. The mood was more one of frustration as small-business owners vented their despair, a result of increasing taxes and the imposition of regulations they say are designed to drive them out of business. "The government keeps thinking up new direct and indirect taxes for us, which are several dozen times higher than the net profit of most entrepreneurs. We are outraged by this," business leader Grigory Rylkov tells Insight. He says nearly one-third of the 59,000 small businesses that registered in Belarus at the beginning of 2003 since have gone bankrupt or closed because of the burdens of fines and taxes. Among small-business owners in the Minsk crowd was plenty of confirmation of Rylkov`s claims. Elena Ripinskaya, a private ballet teacher in the Belarusian capital, says she would have to close up her school. "The number of inspections and fines is rising all the time, and I am sick of feeling guilty for no reason." Welcome to what foreign critics have dubbed the "Cuba of Europe." Since the downfall of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has become the latest pariah of Europe, condemned for pursuing an authoritarian style of rule and cultivating friendships with unsavory regimes, including Iraq`s Saddam Hussein before he was toppled. Western governments have no doubt what they think should happen with the 47-year-old Soviet-style leader he should go, and preferably soon. With that aim in mind Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) has sponsored the Belarus Democracy Act of 2003 (HR 854), which would give the go-ahead to the Bush administration to spend tens of millions of dollars to support grass-roots democracy and civic groups in Belarus.