Protests in Belarus: Lukashenko assures that he will "solve the problem"

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko assured Friday August 21 that he would " solve the problem " of the protest movement which has shaken his country since the controversial election of August 9, accusing the United States of " leading " the demonstrators.

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Referring to the demonstrations in front of workers in the Dzerzhinsk region (south of Minsk), the disputed president assured that " this should not worry you ". “ This is my problem, which I have to solve and we solve it. And believe me, in the days to come, that will be resolved, ”he added, quoted by the public press agency Belta.

He then implied that the demonstrators were paid: “ You are workers, you know that money is earned like that (through work, editor's note). Sometimes it is won in the street but it doesn't last long ”.

The president in power for 26 years has also accused the United States of having organized these demonstrations, in order to create a " cordon sanitaire (bringing together) the three Baltic countries, us and Ukraine " to isolate Russia. " The United States is planning and directing all of this, and the Europeans are playing the game. A special center has been created in Warsaw, " he said.

A controversial election

Alexander Lukashenko, who claims to have won the election with 80% of the vote but faces an unprecedented protest movement in this former Soviet republic, refuses since the beginning of the crisis to dialogue with the opposition, which denounces fraud and organizes daily events in the country. “ There, I am talking to you. And I will only dialogue with the teams of workers, ”he said on Friday, addressing the workers he was meeting.

A " coordination council ", intended to promote the political transition after the election, was formed this week by the opposition but the authorities began Thursday against him for prosecution for " attacking national security ". The leader of the opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, a refugee in Lithuania, assured Friday that the Belarusian people will " never accept the current leadership ".