The bitterest year for Belarusians

A year ago today, on August 9, 2020, an unprecedented crackdown began in the quarter century that Aleksandr Lukashenko has held power in Belarus.

And there it continues while thousands of Belarusians have had to flee abroad and seek refuge in neighboring countries.

The latest, athlete Kristsina Tsimanuskaia, recently arrived in Warsaw after escaping from the Tokyo Olympics.

In the presidential elections a year ago, the opposition appeared united under a single circumstantial candidate, Svetlana Tijanóvskaya.

Her husband and former candidate, Sergei Tijanovski, had been arrested in May, and neither Valery Tsepkalo nor Viktor Babariko were allowed to go to the polls.

However, to the massive demonstrations that would take place in the following dark weeks (the internet was cut off), the official count granted the opposition a Pyrrhic 10% of the votes compared to 80% for the dictator.

More information

• The athlete Kristsina Tsimanuskaia: "I thought that in Belarus jail or a psychiatric hospital awaited me"

• The leader of a group of Belarusians in exile, found hanged in a park in Ukraine

A year later, Lukashenko remains in power despite pressure against him from the United States and the European Union. The key, the support of Moscow, although that dependence puts it in a position of weakness. “Lukashenko is like a cornered jackal, he shows his teeth, but he does not see what is behind him or to the sides. He has no money, he does not control his own strength, he has a terrible fear of what he does not see. If the West wanted, democracy would return, ”says Pavel Latushka, 48, who was its minister a decade ago, and who currently lives in Poland, a refuge this past year for thousands of Belarusians, as well as Ukraine and the Baltic countries, where Networks of more or less informal organizations have emerged that help them with all kinds of problems, such as staying in their early days,school children or even how to use public transport. Latushka now heads one of these organizations, the so-called People's Anti-Crisis Directorate, a body that fights for the transition to democracy and watches over the Belarusian diaspora.

Latushka points out the three pillars that sustain the Lukashenko regime: financial, political and military support from the Kremlin;

its own security forces, although in practice coordinated from Moscow, and arbitrary justice.

“They have been negotiating the union of both countries for a year, but no one has seen a single document.

Putin is imposing his roadmap on him ”, he assures.

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On the rule of law, Latushka himself shows the sentences handed down against him on the door of his office.

“I was Minister of Culture, also a diplomat in France and Spain, and I have been declared a terrorist.

It's funny, but it's shocking.

For this sentence I can receive the maximum penalty: execution ”.

From time to time an incident occurs that provokes the indignation of the international community, such as the hijacking of Roman Protasevich's plane;

the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kiev or the recent attempt to take Tsimanuskaia by force.

However, Belarusians warn that the West is not aware of the real dimension of the regime's violation of human rights.

“More than 35,000 people have been arrested in the last year.

There are about 600 political prisoners and at least 16 opponents have died in jail in a strange way, ”says Latushka.

Many Belarusians said enough in August 2020. One of them is Andrei Ostapowicz, 28, a former policeman also exiled in Warsaw. “We were ordered to stop investigating abuses by the security forces. Every day there were a lot of complaints of torture and I saw how they were manipulated, "he says in a cafeteria in the Polish capital, where he lives after a long odyssey.

A member of the investigation department of a Minsk police station, one day he got fed up, posted his thoughts online and went to Moscow. "If people had the courage to protest, why not me?" Ostapowicz emphasizes. But he had to flee again. Russia sided with Lukashenko and expelled the fugitives. With the excuse of having violated the coronavirus restrictions, they took him to a no-man's-land between both borders, where they told him that he could not return for five years. With nothing but his contacts, he crossed Belarus knowing that he was on the regime's blacklist. “I lost eight kilos. It was a nightmare, ”he recalls.

"It seemed like a quiet country," Ostapowicz responds when asked why he served in Lukashenko's security forces.

“You saw civil wars in other countries like Ukraine.

In Belarus you couldn't talk much, but at least it seemed that everything was working ”, he adds with the tranquility of knowing that he is far away.

"I have had to cut off all contact with my family and friends there, I don't want to put them in danger."

Pavel Latushka believes that Putin made a huge geopolitical mistake in protecting the Minsk regime.

"If I had supported the Belarusians instead of Lukashenko, I would have won a lot of sympathy in Belarusian society," he stresses.

However, he also believes that Europe failed to impose only targeted sanctions on its government.

Today, those who protested a year ago and still live in Belarus have returned to their jobs and have stopped expressing their discontent publicly on the networks.

The less dangerous alternative is to lose your job or get a fine.

Therefore, the general feeling is that there is little more they can achieve within the country.

"I just need to make a mistake," all agree.

Therefore, the general feeling is that little more can be done within the country.

"I just need to make a mistake," all agree.

Youth exile

Nadezhda is the coordinator of the Belarusian Solidarity Center in Warsaw, one of many to emerge from Belarusian exile. "The average profile is young people between 20 and 30 years old, but some pensioners or families also come who have had to leave everything to the race," he explains.

In the late afternoon, a choir of women of all ages practices singing. In these offices provided by the Polish Government they hold all kinds of activities to strengthen their ties. Among the most important is teaching Polish and English to children. "They adapt quickly," Nadezhda says.

The center was founded shortly after the crackdown began and has about 160 volunteers. “We thought that the end of the government was imminent, but it is still there. However, we trust that Lukashenko will make a mistake soon, as he has already done with the plane or with the immigrants, "adds Antón, the center's communication manager, referring to the use of immigrants from the Middle East as a pressure tool that Minsk used on Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, allowing them to pass through its territory.

“The Belarusian KGB brings them from countries where there is terrorism, such as Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq, to ​​release them at the borders and cause chaos. Who are they? ”Agrees opponent Pavel Latushka.