Belarus, a country marching for freedom against Lukashenko
Rights — di Luca Cereda
The protests against Lukashenko's re-election in the Belarusian capital were the largest in the country's history. Putin: “Ready to help him with the army”.
Belarus, a country marching for freedom against Lukashenko
The protests against Lukashenko's re-election in the Belarusian capital were the largest in the country's history. Putin: “Ready to help him with the army”.
In Belarus, 16 August was the day of the long-announced and eagerly awaited great march for freedom, which the country's media describe as the largest demonstration in Belarusian history. The protest peacefully flooded the streets of Minsk. Estimates put the number at over 100,000, with the New York Times suggesting as many as 200,000. All this while, just a few hundred metres away, the disputed president Alexander Lukashenko harangued a crowd of tens of thousands of his supporters from a stage — a counter-demonstration he had called to defend national independence. A trial of strength that played out in the shadow of a possible Russian 'military assistance' intervention, evoked by Vladimir Putin.
The reasons behind the great march for freedom
Preceded by the funeral of the protester killed the previous Monday during clashes with police, the great march fell symbolically exactly one week after the disputed presidential election, which on 9 August delivered, with 80 per cent of the vote, a sixth consecutive term to Lukashenko, now in power for 26 years.
Барыкады каля Рыгі
On the day that Pope Francis turned his thoughts to Belarus at the Angelus with an "appeal for dialogue, for the rejection of violence and for respect for justice and the rule of law", the great crowd along the grand Avenue of Independence chose a symbol: a long ribbon in the old national colours of white, red and white, bearing the emblem of Saint George.
This had been the flag of Belarus after the dissolution of the USSR, but it was replaced by a Soviet-style flag — without the hammer and sickle — in red and green in the very same 1995 referendum in which Alexander Lukashenko extended his own powers.
This symbol is a clear message to the long-standing tyrant: "Get out!" It was also chanted, like a mantra, by crowds in smaller cities too, where the protests drew up to twenty thousand people.
The march of 16 August is the culmination of a week of protests, clashes and tensions that began with the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations by security forces following the announcement of the election results. This situation has led to the death of at least two protesters, more than 6,700 arrests, injuries, and reports of beatings and torture.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya says she is ready to lead the country
What is more, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya herself, the opposition leader who received just 9.9 per cent of the vote and has not accepted the results, was held under arrest for almost seven hours the previous Monday after presenting herself at a court to lodge a complaint about the irregularities of the election. When she was released, it was made clear to her that she would do well to leave the country.
Tikhanovskaya has since left Belarus for Lithuania. This while her husband remains in Lukashenko's prisons. In a video statement on Monday 17 August, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya declared herself ready to become the country's "national leader", claiming victory in the presidential election: "I am ready to take on responsibility and serve during this period as national leader so that the country may calm down and return to a normal rhythm. We must free all political prisoners as soon as possible and prepare for new presidential elections."
Meanwhile, after the violent first days, the violence has subsided. The role of the web continues to be front and centre in Belarus too: both in bringing to light the baton blows and beatings of protesters hidden behind curtains of tear gas, and because it made viral the protest of some former soldiers who posted videos of themselves throwing away their old uniforms, expressing shame at the behaviour of the army and security forces.
Lukashenko appeals to Putin for help. And Europe?
For the first time in twenty-six years, Lukashenko appears to be in serious difficulty, but he still has the army on his side, and thinking that he might relinquish power in the near future remains difficult. Saturday's great march showed, however, that "Europe's last dictator", backed into a corner from which he can get the better of the streets neither by force nor by more conciliatory gestures, needs help from Moscow too, despite having been confirmed as president with 80.2 per cent of the vote.
Today Putin is free to decide whether to follow the logic of the "sphere of influence" and save Lukashenko, including by use of force. Future events in Minsk will depend on this assessment by the "master" of the Kremlin. Will there be a conflictual evolution like that in Ukraine following the "Orange Revolution", which cost thousands of lives and remains unresolved to this day? Or will there be a peaceful change, as during the "Velvet Revolution" that brought Nikol Pashinyan to power in Yerevan, Armenia, in 2018?
Harassment & violent repression of peaceful protesters has no place in Europe.
Fundamental rights in #Belarus must be respected.
I call on the Belarusian authorities to ensure that the votes in yesterday’s election are counted & published accurately.
Fundamental rights in #Belarus must be respected.
I call on the Belarusian authorities to ensure that the votes in yesterday’s election are counted & published accurately.
And Europe? The 27 European countries find themselves, yet again, in a difficult position, as they can rely only on the rather ineffective weapon of sanctions to influence a crisis unfolding just a few kilometres from their borders. The Baltic states and Poland would like concrete action, but they come up against the excessive caution that unfailingly grips Europeans when it comes to acting as a geopolitical power. The only faint voice remains that of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke of "persecution and violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" that "should not be happening in Europe".
The truth about the alleged electoral fraud
There is considerable evidence to support the view that the elections of 9 August were rigged, despite the absence of international observers to monitor the voting process — in fact, they had not been permitted to be there. Before the election, for instance, the authorities had announced that almost half of voters had cast their ballots early. This represented an exponential increase in early voting compared to previous elections. It had seemed very strange at the time, and became even more so when, on election day, extremely long queues formed outside polling stations in many cities across the country, making it scarcely credible that nearly half of those entitled to vote had already done so.
The Honest Elections project obtained photos of the final protocols from 126 polling stations: Tikhanovskaya is the winner in 85 of these. Collecting data from polling stations proved a particularly difficult task given that for two days in a row, internet connectivity was almost entirely down in Belarus right around the time of the elections. But the authorities reject all accusations and claim that internet was cut off from abroad. "Someone feels like taking to the streets. From abroad, the internet is being switched off to create discontent among the population. If the internet is not working properly, that is not our initiative," Alexander Lukashenko had declared.
According to the official election results, however, Lukashenko obtained more than eighty per cent of the vote and Tikhanovskaya just under 10 per cent: Lukashenko was the only one of the five candidates to have accepted these results.
A cross-cutting protest
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, the well-known Belarusian television presenter and journalist Evgeny Perlin announced his resignation in protest against the crackdown on demonstrations. During the week there were also several workers' strikes at the country's large industrial plants, an electoral base where support for Lukashenko is usually high. The strike vote among workers was practically unanimous and committees are forming in preparation to formally notify management of their grievances. Among the demands put forward, the annulment of the elections and an end to violence against demonstrators stand out. Some employees of Belteleradiocompany, which brings together the state television and radio broadcasters, are also on strike, and at 9.00 on Monday 17 August an empty sofa was broadcast for several seconds.