The Bush administration moved Thursday to clamp down financially on three businesses in Belarus linked to a major oil and chemical company allegedly controlled by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The Treasury Department's action is against Lakokraska OAO, Polotsk Steklovolokno OAO and the Byelorussian Oil Trade House. Any assets found in the United States that belong to the companies must be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with them.

The three companies were designated because of their connections to Belneftekhim Concern, a petrochemicals conglomerate that the United States says is controlled by Lukashenko. The U.S. government moved to freeze that company's assets in November.

The United States took its latest action under an executive order President Bush issued in 2006 considering what the United States called "oppression" by Lukashenko and key members of his administration.

The executive order, among other things, gives the U.S. government power to impose financial sanctions on people or companies determined to be responsible for undermining democratic processes or institutions in Belarus and for being owned or controlled by Lukashenko, who was previously designated under Bush's executive order.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, is often branded by Western countries as "Europe's last dictator." He won a third term in 2006 in an election that Western governments deemed fraudulent. The Bush administration, which had called for new elections at the time, said Lukashenko's victory resulted from fraud and human rights abuses.

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