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The resistance is armed for the fight against Lukashenko

2020-08-20T23:52:26.585Z


The citizens' movement against the Belarusian leader defies threats of repression and insists on new elections


A protester protests against police brutality and election results in Minsk, Belarus, this Thursday.YAUHEN YERCHAK

Against Lukashenko's iron fist, civic resistance. Nastya Gatalova has restructured his working hours to be able to be every afternoon in Minsk's Independence Square. In front of the solemn Government building, a white mass of Soviet architecture, the 23-year-old programmer waves a sign that reads "Free Belarus" in rounded letters. And like her, hundreds of citizens have taken as a reference that fixed appointment in the symbolic square in the center of the Belarusian capital to show Aleksandr Lukashenko that they keep the pulse. That despite the threats that she will quell any protest and persecute the leaders of the mobilizations against her regime and against electoral fraud, the citizen movement is ready for the long-term battle. “It can be a week, a month or more, I am prepared to go out to the streets every day. It is my country, it is my freedom ”, emphasizes the young blonde very seriously, wrapped in the white flag with a red stripe that the opposition has taken as a symbol.

But Lukashenko, who has maintained a heavy-handed policy during his more than 26 years in power, not only insists that the elections that have guaranteed him his sixth term were "civic", but that he increases his order every day against the protests. , which according to his speech are promoted from the outside and are a maneuver by the West to overthrow him. This Thursday, the Belarusian prosecutor's office accused the opposition of trying to "seize power" and opened a criminal case against the coordination council created this week under the orders of the opposition leader Svetlana Tijanóvskaya, exiled in Lithuania since shortly after the elections to the feel threatened their family. This council is an entity that seeks to lead the dialogue towards a democratic transition. Although Lukashenko has closed completely to any discussion.

Now its leaders are under the spotlight: from opposition politicians, artists, union representatives to the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Svetlana Alexievich, a very critical voice for years against the Lukashenko regime. The council, says the Prosecutor's Office, wants "to harm the national security of Belarus."

Lukashenko, who once played the buffer between the West and Russia and who had well exploited the charts of Belarus' geostrategic position, is now more isolated than ever. Neither the opposition, nor a large part of the citizenry - as demonstrated in the protests - nor the European Union recognize the results of the elections, which have triggered the largest mobilizations in the history of Belarus.

And also the biggest campaign of repression, says Oleg Gulak of the Helsinki Committee for civil rights, who fears that Lukashenko will order an even bigger campaign of arrests and abuse. "Their goal is to stifle, placate and silence critical voices in any case," says Gulak. For now, Lukashenko has promised to "cool down some hot heads" linked to the opposition and, although less than the first days of mobilizations, he has redeployed policemen in the orderly and clean streets of the capital, lined here and there with emblems of Soviet times.

Many in the country's main cities fear that scenes of the brutal repression of protests will be repeated just after the elections, in which at least three protesters have died. In Minsk, next to the Pushkinskaya metro station, Dasha and Mikola arrange the flowers and offerings that citizens have left in tribute to Alyaksandr Taraykouski, 37, who died this Monday. "There is no justice, with this president there are no human rights or freedom," says Dasha. The Interior Ministry assures that Taraykouski was carrying an explosive device and was going to throw it at the police when it exploded. However, witnesses and various videos have revealed that the man, who raised his hands as he advanced towards the security forces, was hit by a gunshot or by a stun grenade fired deliberately. It is not the only case. After registering several gunshot wounds, the Belarusian authorities had to admit that in the city of Brest they used live fire against the protesters.

The local human rights organization Viasna has received at least two hundred requests for legal help in cases of torture, explains one of its leaders, Valiantin Stefanovich. In the first four days of the protests, there were some 7,000 arrests and hundreds injured by rubber bullets, grenades and truncheons. Dasha and Mikola were also arrested. "And they beat us, they harassed us," she says. But despite the fear of being arrested, both are clear that this is not the time to stop. "It has taken a lot for Belarusian society to wake up, there are certain things that are no longer going to change but we cannot go back," says Mikola, who prefers not to give her last name. She is afraid of retaliation at work, says the 37-year-old man, who is confident that the opposition coordination council will make progress.

Unleashing the movement can have an impact, admits political scientist Pavel Úsov of the Belarusian Center for European Studies. Much of the Belarusian opposition is already in jail or, like Tijanóvskaya, in exile. But what moves the gears of the protests against Lukashenko is, today, a popular movement rather than an opposition with foundations and structures. That is why Úsov hopes that this movement of resistance and dialogue will spread. “But society must set the time frame. If it lasts too long, it will hit the change process, ”he says.

In this environment, the pro-government counterpart is also gradually becoming visible. For several days, dozens of people have taken to the streets in different cities in support of the Belarusian leader in demonstrations or events, mostly organized by institutional structures. This Thursday, dozens of pro-government protesters took a walk through Minsk's Independence Square where they gently confronted opposition supporters. "I don't want people in my country to be repressed, killed in protests, tortured, in which we cannot elect our political representatives," says Alexéi Karman, a 22-year-old Bachelor of Arts. “These people who have come here to support Lukashenko may also want their share of freedom, but that is incompatible with a dictatorship. And we have a president who has been in power for 26 years… I think it is time for a change ”.

The leader rejects the offer of European dialogue

Alexandr Lukashenko has a taste for militaristic rhetoric. And the gestures. This Thursday, just one day after putting the Army in "full combat readiness" on the western borders it shares with Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, it again rejected European offers to mediate the political crisis in the former Soviet republic. The Belarusian leader has even refused to take calls from some Western leaders, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Instead, both she and her French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, or the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, have turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Lukashenko has asked for help.

For now, Moscow has closed ranks with the Belarusian regime although it has avoided explicitly backing Lukashenko, who exploits the Kremlin's favorite dialectic by insisting that the opposition is financed by the West. Moscow has warned against any "interference" in the affairs of Belarus or trying to influence the post-Soviet zone.

This Thursday, Macron accused Lukashenko of "resisting" the OSCE mediation proposal to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has already been "favorable", according to the French leader, who at the same time warned Moscow of that Europe expects a "frank dialogue" on the former Soviet republic, because "stability and the possibility of a relationship between the EU and Russia are also at stake in this case." "We do not want to see a replica with what we saw in past years, especially with Ukraine, and we have been very clear with Putin," he said.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-08-20

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